The Astria Porta Project
by solunvar
Summary: The United Kingdom was the region Moros was active in the most. Centuries after his 'departure', the findings of several of his possessions herald a new age for mankind on Earth with the Commonwealth concurring the Americans' SGC. Harry Potter / Stargate SG1 / Atlantis crossover. Repost of 2008 original.
1. Ouroboros Treasures

**The Astria Porta Project – Part One : Ouroboros Treasures**

**Disclaimer** I don't own the Harry Potter franchise, nor the Stargate franchise. Other, rich, people do. I also apologize if several people in this story aren't portrayed with sufficient respect; I try, but I only have my imagination to base off.

**Author's Note** This is a repost. This story was originally published on this site five years ago, I got dissatisfied with it somewhen around 2010-2011 and promptly deleted it. Several months ago, I actually started reading it again and found that I enjoyed myself. So why not bring it back here again, aye?

* * *

It was, Harry Potter thought, a fitting name for his shop.

The ouroboros was a mythical creature of the likes of phoenixes and basilisks, only the latter existed in the wizarding world, while the snake that eats its own tail didn't.

His hunt for the Horcruxes hadn't gone exactly as the late Albus Dumbledore, former Hogwarts Headmaster Severus Snape, Hermione Granger or even Ron Weasley would have imagined. No, he hadn't immediately focused on the retrieval of objects related to Hogwarts' founders or even the mysterious and highly sought Deathly Hallows.

It all started quite innocent and entirely innocent, namely with a Muggle man, Mundungus Fletcher and a visit to Borgins and Burks. The Muggle man wasn't all that important of course, but he was the one who inspired his course of action. He didn't even remember his name, Donald something, but he did remember what he once said: "If you start thinking, think big."

So instead of merely searching for a couple of objects that happened to contain a piece of Voldemort's soul, Harry broadened his horizon, learned a few nifty spells and even crafted some of his own. At the time, he was rather surprised how easily chanting magic came to him, but he supposed his years at Hogwarts had to be good for something other than almost getting killed every year.

Mundungus Fletcher, renown for his poor choice of tobacco and whiskey, hadn't meant much to Harry's grand plan either, he too only served as a source of inspiration, namely the looting of magical sites for precious artifacts. Borgins and Burks, and in a roundabout way the memory shown to him of Tom Riddle working for the shop by Grindelwald's first lover, Albus Dumbledore, was a place that got him thinking as well. Considering the fact that the shop had been the primal place to be of Knockturn Alley for decades, wizards and witches probably held artifacts of the past in high esteem. Muggles were the same really.

Which brings us to Harry's activities during the great majestic and adventurous Horcrux hunt: Through bewitching several maps of Britain and the European continent, Harry was and is able to locate most of magical properties, even the Unplottable ones. Owning a house of an old wizarding family didn't hurt in that aspect. With the help of these maps, Harry sought deserted estates, hidden storage sites and lost magical objects, looted the majority of them and stored them in a couple of bottomless bags that were placed in a leather satchel he constantly kept on his person.

Because the wizarding world only started separating itself from the Muggle world in the middle of the Dark Ages, he often found Muggle objects from the period before the separation as well. These were stored in a Muggle rucksack, if only to distinguish one bag from another.

Since he operated alone - his friends having returned to Hogwarts for their seventh year - it took him nine months to go through one fifth of the locations on his list when the pesky situation with Voldemort started bothering him again. Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup were in his possession and without Dark Lord essence, he had the Invisibility Cloak at his disposal and the one and only Resurrection Ring pocketed away, so he checked his schedule, decided his weekend in Villedieu-les-Poêles in Normandy could be postponed, and made his way into his old school.

He didn't know what the Ministry, and in extension Voldemort, had been drinking when they decided to renovate the Scottish castle, but it truthfully was dreadfully; dull and bland and generally spoken rather depressing. As it was, he was surprised to find a battle going on between the various factions of the schools, the occasional member of the Order of the Phoenix or Death Eater passing by. While it would only be polite to assist his friends, he had a job to do: put a light to a millennium old tiara, kill an ugly snake and behead the Dark Lord.

The first of his tasks was an easy one, even if he had to knock Crabbe and Goyle - Dudley's lost brothers - out and hex Draco Malfoy bald and unconscious. The tiara was quite obvious to find in hindsight and a quick Extinguish-Your-Soul curse later, one of his more advanced inventions, Ravenclaw's precious relic was but a Muggle historical object. Naturally so, it disappeared in his bag.

Finding Nagini and Voldemort wasn't too difficult as well, they were giving a speech in the Forbidden Forest of all places. Hidden beneath his Invisibility Cloak, Harry cast his unknown, yet soon to be infamous Extinguish-Your-Soul curse at the obese snake, causing Voldemort to look around suspiciously. The teenage relic hunter had to refrain from laughing openly at the noseless wizard. Having already put a goblin-wrought sword through his forehead months before, effectively killing the Horcrux in him as well, Voldemort was with this last action completely mortal.

"Potter! Coward, reveal yourself!" Voldemort shouted. The Death Eaters shifted their position a bit, trying to find Undesirable Number One in their midst.

Harry didn't fall for the bait however; if he were a Gryffindor, honorable and brave, then he might have, but Harry had moved since then and certainly life as the wizarding equivalent of a pirate or tomb raider, whatever term you prefer, was far more Slytherin in nature than the real Hogwarts deal. Cunning and sly, the terms were nearly synonyms of idiotic and ugly these days.

Casting his special curse for the third time that day, Harry contemplated that it was a rather sad way for Voldemort to die, but what could he say? Arrogance always got people killed.

When their master abruptly collapsed and evaporated soon after, the Death Eaters panicked briefly, before coming to their senses. They glanced at each other and shrugged.

"He wasn't in his right mind anyway," one said to another. "And well... Being in charge of our world was fun for a while, but the paperwork involved was a bit much."

"Always Crucio'd the lot of us too. Do you think he'll be back?"

"I doubt it. Whoever did this is good, that thing that hit him didn't even have a light!"

"Don't fancy crossing that bloke. You reckon it was Potter?"

"Well... he though it was. Don't know for sure though, I heard the brat hasn't really been around much. Said he's traveling all over Europe doing Merlin knows what."

"Hey! Would you look at that! Someone's levitating the master's wand!"

"Should we take it?"

The Death Eater thought about his answer for a moment. "No, we can only get in trouble by taking it. You know what? I'm leaving before we get arrested."

"Excellent idea, I think I'll leave as well. So, the usual discretion from now on?"

"Yes, our Death Eater life is over. My wife will be happy."

Voldemort's wand, the Elder Wand, found its way to Harry, who promptly left the scene, stopped by the fighting students and adults to tell them the Dark Lord was dead. It was, all things considered, still possible for him to go on his outing to Normandy.

He continued his treasure hunt for another year, occasionally visiting the wizarding world though he stayed in the Muggle world most of the time. After twenty-one months of constantly being on the road, as the Muggles say, Harry felt the need to settle down a bit. Having acquired so many artifacts he could start a museum, he chose to set up a shop. While the amount of magical objects he'd collected was still larger than the normal objects, there were a great many of those that were something in between. Not really magical, but they certainly acted like it. For instance, he had about a dozen of ugly Egyptian gauntlets that created a protective shield, healed wounds and tortured.

Selling a couple of objects, some to elderly wizards and witches, others to rich Muggle men and women, he eventually had enough money to buy a large property. Since one of his largest acquisitions was a pyramid-like thing spaceship, probably made by aliens of some kind, he bought one square mile of land near Blackpool and ordered constructions for a two acre large building in the style of a medieval castle. Perhaps those sizes were a bit over the top, but after living inside a cupboard for close to ten years, Harry wanted some space that was his. With his building located near the back of the property, it also formed a nice physical barrier against curious minds.

His small castle, or fortress, had a courtyard. The buildings up front would serve as his exposition rooms, at least some floors of it. The magical objects he wanted to sell would be on the top level, the fourth, and sufficiently warded against Muggles. Beneath the building would be two basement levels, his personal dungeons. One would serve as the floor where his not-quite-magical objects would be exposed though only for himself. The lowest level, well, he wasn't quite sure what to do with it, but he let he constructors build it any way.

The costs for his little setup weren't low, but neither were the objects he'd sold so that evened out a bit.

Harry hadn't been in business for a long time when a caravan of limousines and military jeeps drove on his grounds. On seeing them approach, Harry had to whistle.

"Must be someone high up," he said to himself. Despite the abundance of rooms he had, he lived alone, aside Kreacher and Dobby of course, and hadn't yet employed any staff. When the urge to go out and explore the world returned, he'd need to hire at least someone capable, yet so far it hadn't.

Hermione regularly visited him, what with the historical value of most of his collection, but aside from customers, reporters or students working on a thesis, nobody else came. The Weasleys had come once, yes, but they were obviously a bit overwhelmed with his apparent fortune. Ron left early that night, a bit too jealous of Harry's money and property, though Bill and Fleur stopped by from time to time; the eldest Weasley son quite interested in some of his Egyptian artifacts. Fleur simply longed for a bit of grandeur from time to time and a male that didn't have red hair.

Wanting to be there when his unexpected guests arrived, he descended the stairway, glanced in the mirror to see whether his Armani tuxedo didn't have any dirty spots, and opened his oaken entrance doors. Clasping his hands together behind his back, he waited.

Ten minutes later, men wearing black suits, sunglasses and guns had cleared the area, men from the military police were positioned on strategic places on his property.

'This looks rather official,' thought Harry, 'I wonder why I wasn't informed in advance.'

A friendly looking elder man exited one of the limousines, a woman in her forties with graying hair and glasses following suit. The man approached Harry.

"Mr Potter I presume?" he asked.

"I am Harry Potter," he said, "And welcome to Ouroboros Treasures ."

"I'm Lloyd Baker, liaison between Home Security and the British crown. How do you do?"

Harry's eyebrows rose slightly. "How do you do?" he replied. "To what do I owe this visit?"

"The article about your establishment in The Daily Telegraph a couple of days ago caught the eye of her Majesty; she has decided to visit your collection. Due to intelligence received in the Home Security department, the security level has risen. It was deemed best not to inform you in advance of her arrival to prevent this information to be unnecessarily spread."

Harry's eyes widened. "Her Majesty is here?"

Lloyd continued. "Because you were not forewarned, preparations have been taken and you need not worry about providing lunch. Unless your chef is up to the task of preparing food and drinks for a dozen men and women?"

Harry hesitated slightly. "I shall confer with him immediately. Excuse me for a moment."

He quickly walked to an anteroom of the entrance hall and called out: "Kreacher! Dobby!"

His house-elves popped in immediately. "Master called Kreacher?" "The Great Harry Potter Sir's be needing Dobby?"

"Can you make lunch for twelve men?" he asked.

The former Black elf looked delighted. "Master's be having company?"

Harry nodded. "The Queen is here with her entourage."

"Who's be the Queensie, Harry Potter Sir?" Dobby asked confusedly.

"She's a bit like the Muggle Merlin and Minister of Hogwarts," explained the wizard.

Both house-elves' eyes widened quite comically. "We's be making great lunch, Master," promised Kreacher.

"Excellent. I don't know whether they are aware of magic, but it's a good possibility someone will give you some more information about the likes and dislikes of the Queen and whoever is with her."

The elves nodded, feeling more assured in their loyalty to their master than before.

"All right, that's all for the moment."

He returned soon after to his guests, who were admiring his land. On spotting him, Queen Elisabeth II walked to him, her consort Prince Philip following.

"You must be Harry Potter," the Queen greeted him, offering her hand. Harry bowed and kissed it like a proper gentleman.

"That I am, my Majesty."

"This is my husband, Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh."

Harry shook the Duke's hand.

"You have a charming place, Mr Potter," the man complimented. "It reminds me of Balmoral Castle. I understand it is a rather new structure?"

Harry didn't quite know what to say to that except yes, which hardly sufficed.

"Don't mind him, Mr Potter, my husband is a bit of a fanatic when it comes to architecture. Now, I understand you have a rather unique collection. Would you honor us by giving us a tour?"

"It is I who would be honored, Majesty," stated he.

"You are a charming you man," said the Queen.

Harry would be lying if he said he didn't blush at that comment. Deciding to ignore the fact that the monarchs of his country was standing right in front of him, he started his introduction of his little business. He wanted to give a complete explanation though.

"This question might sound odd to you, Majesty, but I have to ask: Are you aware of all aspects of your empire?"

"If by that you are asking whether we are aware of the wizarding world, the answer would be yes, we are," responded the Queen.

"And your staff, Ma'am?"

"They are my servants, Mr Potter," the Queen answered, amused, "Of course they have the security clearance to at least know about that."

"Good," said Harry, "then I can tell you a more truthful version."

The Prince and Queen smiled slightly. It wasn't often they came in touch with a wizard or witch and when they did, it never was for long and oftentimes quite distantly.

"The Ouroboros, as you might know, is a mythical creature, both in the magical and regular world." He pointed to the silver symbol engraved in the entrance doors. "It is often associated with time, eternity and the universe, one of the primary reasons I chose this animal as the namesake and logo of my enterprise."

They entered his residence, Harry leading them to a corridor to their left.

"About two years ago, I was given the task of finding several magical relics that were enchanted to hold a piece of the soul of Tom Marvolo Riddle, later known as Lord Voldemort. The existence of these objects, in the wizarding world named Horcruxes, was a secret unearthed by the late Albus Dumbledore."

"As I wasn't an adult wizard yet, I had some time to come up with a plan to find these Horcruxes, destroy them and eliminate the threat Voldemort posed to Britain and the world. In this respect, there were several routes I could have taken, one involving the search for other, even more mysterious objects that were supposedly given to three wizards, one being my ancestor, by Death itself. But that course of action was devised by Dumbledore and involved the cooperation of his murderer, my former potions professor, and two of my friends."

"You did not follow this path, I suppose?" Prince Philip questioned. Harry briefly looked at him, noting the interested faces of the MI5 and royal staff members. He absently wondered just how many Muggles knew about the wizarding world.

"I did not. You see, I was inspired by a quote I read quite coincidentally: 'If you start thinking, think big.' So I started making plans and devising ways to easily go about the task ahead of me. With careful use of spells and charms, I was able to enchant several maps of the British Isles and the European mainland to locate any magical site or isolated magical object. By comparison with a map of wizarding Europe, I made a long list of places to visit. Some places were inhabited, so I did not linger long there, but quite a few were abandoned and had fallen in a state of disarray.

"I removed most of the valuable objects in the abandoned places, while sometimes I even took complete graves of important persons throughout history. As it was, the really old locations were often littered with both magical and non-magical artifacts, so I took both with them.

"After I vanquished Voldemort, I continued my explorations throughout Europe and quit a couple of months ago, wanting to settle down a bit. I sold some of the artifacts I gathered, constructed this estate and opened shop. I could have opened a museum of course, but a man has to gain an income somehow."

"That's quite a fascinating tale," commented the Queen.

"In the meantime, we have arrived in the burial chamber. In the left corner is the grave of a Roman general. I estimate that he died during one of the attempts to invade Britain when the Western Roman Empire still existed."

The grave was rather simple, though an original shield, sword and uniform was positioned next to it.

"The grave next to it is from a Welsh landlord in the seventh century AD.

"The grave in the center of the room is the final resting place of Charlemagne, while directly across of him lays William of Normandy. Next to Charlemagne is Egbert, king of Wessex and Anglo-Saxon overlord in the ninth century AD. Across Egbert lays Alva, one of Charles V's military leaders sent to the Netherlands in the sixteenth century AD to oppress the resistance of the northern Netherlands. Opposite the Roman general is a Viking leader named Guthrum of the ninth century AD, while the one opposite the Welsh landlord is Ethelred the Unready."

To say the people gathered in the room were impressed, would be an understatement. They were baffled that so many historical figures were unearthed from their hiding places and placed in one pesky, if large, room.

"You sell these graves?" one attendee asked incredulously, receiving a disapproving stare from the others, including a stern look from the Queen.

Harry shook his head. "They are not for sale, though this room will only be a temporary resting place for them. I am still unsure of what I should do with them."

A silent conversation, spoken in looks instead of words passed between the Prince and the Queen, ending with both of them nodding shortly.

Harry continued his explanation. "The two graves near the front of the room are as special as the others, though for the normal world they don't mean that much. The one on Charlemagne's side is Salazar Slytherin, founder of the wizarding school of Britain, while the other contains the remains of Morgan Le Fey, a famous or infamous witch, depending on your sources, of the eight century AD."

"You have managed well to keep this a secret," said the Prince.

Harry weighed his words carefully. "It might surprise you, Majesty, that these graves aren't the most remarkable things I have encountered. And as to keeping this a secret, I would be swamped with visitors if word got out. Not to mention the complaints I'd receive of every country involved."

Lloyd Baker noted Mr Potter's comment carefully in his mind. Perhaps the secondary reason for their visit could be explained without any problems. It was a risk the royals, Home Security and several other secretive governmental organizations were taking, but a necessary one. The Americans, when given monopoly, always managed to make the situation graver than it was before.

Harry led them through the complete floor, followed by the second and third floor. The rooms in these parts weren't as filled with artifacts of historical value as the burial chamber, but they still contained many noteworthy objects, each of them having an interesting background story. Throughout telling them the historical context, Harry included stories of how he found something, what trouble he went through to go inside a site or even what he sometimes had to do to get out. The royals found the explanation educating and amusing at the same time, by the time noon arrived, a pleasant atmosphere hung about the group, though formalities and etiquette were still followed.

"If you would follow me, my servants have prepared lunch for you."

It was a feast really, the likes of which feasts at Hogwarts seemed ridiculously bad. When dessert came about, the mood grew a bit more solemn.

"Mr Potter," began the Queen, "I have a question for you, and please answer it honestly. Would you be willing to part with a lot of the artifacts in your possession and have them placed in a museum? Aside from the financial gain you currently have on selling them, of course."

Harry remained quiet for a while. "Truthfully, Ma'am? I wouldn't mind not having them, I am selling some of it after all, but I wouldn't want them to be spread to numerous museums across the world. While they aren't exactly always from the same origin, together they represent a time line in history not often told. By now we know a lot, if not most, of the ancient Egyptian civilization, the Greek culture and the Roman empire. We know roughly what happened to who in the past millennium, but for the rest the Dark Ages remain just that, shadowed by the civilization before and after. And I don't know of any museum specialized in this branch of history that is capable of securing all my findings."

"And if subsidies would be given to build an entirely new museum, a royal museum, around your collection?"

Harry frowned. "I wouldn't mind per say, but the transport alone of everything would have to be done the normal way and I don't see that happening over a long distance."

Lloyd chose this moment to speak up. "That could be part of another matter we would like to talk about."

Harry regarded him oddly, then glanced at the Queen and her Prince. "This isn't an elaborate ploy to install some kind of magical duke, is it?"

The Queen smiled serenely. "It is not, Mr Potter."

"It has come to our attention, entirely coincidentally, that you didn't only find magical and non-magical relics."

Harry sighed softly. Well, so much for well-kept secrets. "That is possible, Mr Baker."

"Several British agencies know the nature of these alien objects and through intricate intelligence gathering, have managed to construct a story surrounding them, as well as the true nature of our past. One of these objects is called an Astria Porta and essentially is a portal to worlds in other solar systems and sometimes even galaxies. At this very moment, American Air Force personnel uses one of these Astria Porta to travel our galaxy, but as is the American way, they have gained quite a few powerful enemies."

Harry thought back to the spaceship parked in his dungeon and the numerous depictions of snake-like beings on stones he'd collected.

"The Americans for the moment consider the existence of their Stargate program a closely kept secret, whether this is out of a need for having a monopoly or out of a feeling of responsibility, we don't quite know. Many of our officers and employees however are uncomfortable leaving the safety of our world in the hands of the yanks."

Harry cocked his head to the side. "I thought Great Britain and the US were allies?"

"We are, we are," Lloyd assured, "but when it comes down to it, the Commonwealth represents more territory of this planet that than the US ever will."

"And why would you tell all of this to me? And pardon for saying so, Ma'am, Sir, but why in the presence of the Prince and Queen?"

"The Astria Porta in possession of the Commonwealth," the Queen revealed, "has been in Windsor Castle for decades now, out of use and out of reach of the people that might be able to control it."

"In fact," Lloyd continued, "We lack the right facilities to house it. The Americans have their headquarters placed inside a mountain, but we do not have that luxury. Every military domain in our possession is unfit for such an operation, and even if we used one, that would only result in more attention than we'd want to."

It didn't take long for the two pieces of information to be connected in Harry's mind. "So you want to build some kind of underground base beneath the museum housing my collection, a museum that would take any attention drawn to the project away."

Lloyd nodded, pleased.

"Still that doesn't explain why I'm being informed of all of this."

"It has been noted that you currently own one square mile of land, with only one acre built on. With your permission..."

"You want to construct headquarters here as well as that museum." Harry sighed. "It would solve the transportation objections I have, I suppose."

"You would naturally be given a position in both organizations," the Queen stated. "As primary provider of artifacts for the Royal Ouroboros Museum and as owner of the grounds the Astria Porta Project, provider of objects to research so that our technology can evolve more rapidly, and royally certified relic hunter. Besides, it isn't because your normal business transactions would cease, that your magical enterprise should as well."

Harry thought about the offer for a while. There wasn't really anything that forced him to accept, he'd certainly gain more than he'd lose, but still... He was a solitary being, despite appearances. Then again, maybe some company wouldn't be bad, even if they were spies, soldiers, scientists and bureaucratic pricks.

"I... accept," Harry finally offered.

The Queen clapped her hands once. "Excellent. Now, can you call your servants? I would like to have a word with them."

"Of course, Majesty. Kreacher! Dobby!"

The elves popped into existence. "You's be calling, Master?"

"The Queen wants to say something to you." The elves' turned, a bit frightened that they ashamed their master in front of this guest, to Elisabeth II.

"I wanted to thank you for an excellent meal, well done!"

As one, they blushed a dark green tint and looked down at their feet. Dobby of course couldn't keep quiet.

"Misses Queensie's be thanking Dobby and Kreacher!" Harry quickly intervened before the former Malfoy elf started wailing and herded them towards the kitchen areas. As he returned, he said to his guests: "Sorry for that, Dobby's quite an emotional fellow."

The royals' visit to his estate and the subsequent news that a royal museum would be constructed to house his collection was reported in The Times a couple of days later, causing an uprise in visitors of noble breed. With the help of some people working at Buckingham palace, an architect was hired as well as several notices sent out looking for employees; guides, administrative staff, and the likes. That the security was provided by the British military was a noteworthy exception to the rule, but didn't cause for much of an uprising.

At the same time, an architect working for Home Security started making plans for the military base and several members of MI7, a clandestine branch of MI6, cataloged the alien technology in his basement and gave him a thorough report of what they managed to discover of the aliens in existence and their stance concerning Earth.

In the end it was decided that his lowest dungeon would be transformed in offices for the lads and lasses of MI7. Instead of turning up his grounds and build in the open, a tunnel would be built from these dungeons, from which the entire base would be caved out. A trip to a Greek site ended up with Harry getting his hands on an Ancient ring transporter, which would be placed in a secure room in the ROM, the Royal Ouroboros Museum, and serve as the main entrance to the underground base.

Constructions of both the museum and the base started, though the latter was in place long before the museum buildings were finished. A Fidelius charm with Harry as its secret keeper protected the Astria Porta Project, abbreviated Approject, from unauthorized access and knowledge, placing Harry in one of the most important positions of the operation.

British intelligence services discretely informed their counterparts of the other Commonwealth nations, bringing about an influx of Canadian, Australian, New-Zealandic, Jamaican and Barbadian personnel.

The smaller nations of the Commonwealth realm weren't capable of sending a lot of people, though each had a representative present, each working through the embassies of each country. Because the MI departments of the government were strictly British in nature, MI7 was promptly renamed Homeworld Security and served as the public relations and Terran side of Approject, a department, their intelligence told, the Americans lacked.

It wasn't perhaps the most secure way to go, but it would be presumptuous to assume only Britain could support the project. Besides, if they wanted to represent a larger part of the world, it simply was a necessity.

Within six months all of their preparations came to an end, combined units had gone through intensive training and scientist were able to develop nuclear fusion generators through study of the alien devices, a feat only enabled because fine scientists from various parts of the worlds put their heads together. While the aliens primarily worked with an element foreign to earth, the fusion generator worked with elements present on the planet. Plans were already in the works to steadily replace nuclear reactors, gradually grow less dependent on oil or gas from the Arabic nations, and fulfill the energy needs of the Commonwealth.

Surprisingly enough, the Astria Porta stored in Windsor Castle was the last object needed to be installed in the Approject facilities. Homeworld Security and Phoenix Operations, the department responsible for the actual off-world visits, wanted to make sure that their activities could run without much trouble once they started.

"Does anyone want a cup of tea?" Jeanine Walker, one of the management-assistants of Homeworld Security politely inquired.

"I could do with a bit of Earl Grey, Ms Walker, no milk and a bit of sugar," Lloyd Baker, freshly appointed liaison between Approject and the throne, answered.

"Rose-hip with some sugar, please," ordered Harry.

The other senior staff members of both Homeworld Security and Phoenix Operations gave their preferences. They waited until their drinks arrived, before settling down to begin their meeting - a gathering of the board of directors you could say.

"All right, people," said Matthew Scott, the former MI-6 director who was one of the driving forces behind Approject and generally acknowledged as the leader - after the Queen of course. "Let's start this meeting. Mrs Feist, would you like to begin?"

The head of the administrative department affirmed the request. "I will begin by summarizing the statistics of both organizations. Phoenix Operations currently has 278 men and women employed. 78 of those compromise our thirteen teams of six members each.

"White Dove Alpha and Beta are our diplomatic teams and will only be sent to non-hostile planets and civilizations in order to establish alliances or at least friendly relations. Panther teams Alpha and Beta consist of former SAS soldiers and MI6 agents, they will perform sensitive missions and assassinations. Finally, the eight Wasp teams, from Alpha to Hector are the ones performing regular reconnaissance and exploration missions.

"We currently have forty scientists working for us, all of whom are located in the Blackpool base. Fifty former Royal Navy men and women work as security guards under the command of Mortimer McCoy, former Marshal of the Royal Navy. Sixty employees are general Phoenix staff, performing numerous functions like operating the Astria Porta or ovd erseeing the paperwork necessary. Our IT department has twenty people under its command, while the remaining thirty are technicians cooperating with the scientists."

"That's a lot of people under our command," said Scott, "and the number's only going to grow as we bring in the other nations and the bases in Canada, Jamaica, Australia and New Zealand become active. Mrs Feist, I understand there were some difficulties establishing ranks for Phoenix Operations?"

"We have solved our problems, sir," answered Sarah Feist, "The titles of the different ranks are, according to superiority: Supreme Chief, Chieftain, Vice-Chieftain, Guardian, Vice-Guardian, Lord, Vice-Lord, Knight and Vice-Knight.

"Her Royal Highness Queen Elisabeth the Second is Phoenix's Supreme Chief. Mathew Scott is this base's Chieftain. Arthur Olvan is Vice-Chieftain, while Harry Potter and Wycliffe Brooks are Guardians. This rank will always be represented by two people: one magical person that is the base's Secret Keeper and one former military leader. Vice-Guardian James Sunders is the former two's second-in-command. They direct and organize the security of this base. Every department head is a Lord, and their deputies Vice-Lords. Division or team leaders are Knights and team members or regular employees are Vice-Knight, on an equal footing with privates.

"These ranks apply in every branch of Phoenix Operations. Cooperation between branches formally exist through the Chieftain Council, though it is logical to assume that Chieftains of each branch cooperate. In case of an emergency or threat, a Guardian's authority overrides the authority of Chieftain and Vice-Chieftain."

Scott looked at the newly categorized Lords, Vice-Lords and Guardians. "At the moment only the British branch of Phoenix Operations exist. The Canadian branch will be operative within six months, the Australian branch in three months, the New Zealandic branch in five months and the Jamaican branch in one year.

"Assuming the coming meeting between the Queen and the leaders of the Comonwealth nations goes well, prospective branches can be located in India, Barbados, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Cameroon, Mozambique and Sri Lanka.

"Most of these countries aren't in an ideal situation right now, which is why Phoenix Stewart will focus on developing agricultural and medical technology. Phoenix Gibson's primary project will be the development of a hyperspace capable engine, Phoenix Newfoundland will concern itself with offensive and defensive weaponry, including spacecraft. Phoenix Blue Mountain will be our training center. Lord Richards, the floor's yours."

Johanna Richards, Science Lord, the organization's Research & Development department, straightened her back a bit. "The mono class nuclear fusion reactor is ready to be produced on a larger scale, the only existing exemplars are currently in use for this base, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Balmoral Castle and the government buildings in London. The bi class reactor, a more advanced version, is being designed as we speak and will eventually be used for energy needs of the Commonwealth nations. The tri class reactor will be a massive improvement of the mono class, though it will only be used for Phoenix Operations.

"We have disassembled the snake-like energy guns and used that study to develop our own gun with the same functions as the snake weapons, but constructed of elements found on Earth. The prototype will be tested in two days, production is planned for the following month.

"The shield gauntlets in our possession," Harry refrained from snorting, when it came to original alien equipment, he'd originally found everything, "are still being worked on in our laboratories, but it's looking good.

"The translator devices and linguistic goggles are proving to be more difficult to construct, but given time that too should be accomplished."

It was quite interesting what a bunch of geniuses could come up with. For instance those linguistic goggles; when worn they should increase activity in the part of the brain responsible for linguistic skill in such a matter that you could understand any languages, written and spoken, and reproduce them. The explanation was, no doubt, much more complicated, but that was as far as Harry could follow. It was, however, a much easier alternative to learning alien tongues individually. Or worse, having to rely on an artificial language derived from some millennia old script found in an old pervert's tomb - Harry'd been in one of those often enough.

Frankie Aberdeen, IT Lord and one of the best hackers in Britain, spoke up. "While we haven't been able to access the Stargate Command network, an obscure Pentagon sponsored agency called NID has agents in the Cheyenne Mountain Facility. They in turn slipped copies of everything in SGC's database on the internet through various forums. It took us a couple of days to crack the sites, but we now have every mission report, every discovery and the entire Astria Porta address database of the Americans.

"Samuel Dickerson and Kathleen Farrow, two of the best programmers, are busy developing an operating system with an entirely new programming language, Astra, with the majority of my crew to ensure 100 percent safety of our data. The system kernel is based on the same principles as the Linux kernel, though Avalon OS will be able to deal with far more technology than existing operating systems. The team lead by Virginia Pinkerton is working with Daniel Kaddish of the science department and Boris Dover of the technical staff to design the first nanocore based computer on Earth. Avalon OS is in its beta phase, a release candidate is scheduled for the first of July, three days before the first mission, and will be installed on every computer including the ones from Homeworld Security. The second version of Avalon OS will contain a more advanced kernel, based off of a better machine language than Assembler entitled Royal."

Again, half of what was being said went way over his head, but Harry vouched to follow a couple of courses to know what the specialists were saying.

"Lord Malone, how are your troops doing?" asked the Chieftain.

"All troops have gone through as much training as possible, as well as developed battle strategies based on the new weapons and hopefully new shielding devices. Until then, standard SAS strategy and weaponry will be used, though the White Dove teams are inexperienced to real combat. We are on standby for missions, sir."

"Excellent work, Lord," Scott said, "Guardians Brooks and Potter, how is the security going?"

Harry motioned for Wycliffe to go first.

"Guards are positioned near every entrance to the base, rotations have been worked out and a team for the terminal will always be present to deal with unpleasant surprises." The terminal was the name given to the space housing the Astria Porta and inspired by the terminals in airports. "Camera surveillance of the grounds and museum is active. Safety protocols have been established, holding cells in Guardian Potter's dungeons constructed. Two fortified Hummervees and one fortified former military bus will always be available in the estate's garage in case of evacuation."

Harry continued. "The Fidelius charm is active, as you well know, effectively hiding us from any and all sensors, be they normal, alien or magical. All visitors must be approved by me and given the secret to the Blackpool base. While it's possible for two people in the know to talk about it freely, I want you to ensure none of your employees are having loose tongues. As long as our existence is to be kept a secret, not a word of what goes on in here is spoken outside this base. Expect for Liaison Baker and the Commonwealth representatives who have to confer with their superiors and counterparts.

"Having said that, the Royal Ouroboros Museum is opening its doors on the fourth of July to a restricted group of people; journalists, renown archaeologists from over the world and people the museum invited personally. A visitor that might interest you all will be a doctor Daniel Jackson and his 'assistant' Murray."

A flicker of surprise was present on every attendant's face.

"The room containing the Ring Transporter is adequately protected, but I will cast a Confundus ward on the door before the visitors arrive, just to be sure.

"On another front, I'm in contact with wizards and witches from every prospective branch nation and trying to weed out the ineffective candidates. Aurelia Dibble, a Canadian witch, has already been approved and the Australian choice is divided fifty-fifty between an Aboriginal mage and a former Unspeakable of the Indo-Australian Federation, a wizard born in Sydney. Each of them have roots outside the wizarding communities, it's the only way they would fit in.

"I'm also searching for a Vice-Guardian for Phoenix Blackpool, in case something happens to me. It's a good possibility the same policy will be adopted for the other branches."

Matthew Scott nodded to show he appreciated the initiative. "All right, I think we covered the major points now. Lord Donagal, how are your technicians doing?"

The meeting continued for another two hours, trying to fine tune everybody's schedule and their own deadline: the Fourth of July as well; if the first mission was a success, the New World Symphony by Dvorák would be played. If it was a failure, Mozart's Requiem would sound from the museum's speakers. It was a subtle enough code.

A blue Volkswagen Beetle was parked in front of 'Adder Castle', name several locals had given to Harry's estate and since got picked up by the press. A woman with sleek, brown hair to her shoulders, dressed in an elegant suit, a pair of thin-framed glasses perched on her nose, stepped out of the Beetle. She walked the few stairs to the oaken entrance door and rang the bell.

A minute later, a dark-haired, not too short, not too long, young man opened the door.

The woman offered her hand. "Mr Potter I presume? I'm Melissa Taylor from The Guardian , we arranged an interview?"

"Welcome, Ms Taylor, to my home," Harry Potter said, "Come in."

"I wanted you to know how grateful I am for this opportunity," the journalist said.

"We'll be going to my office, please follow me."

They walked the distance to what once was the burial room and now was a very large office, with a roomy desk, comfortable chairs, and a nice (if fake) Persian carpet on the floor. Melissa looked around, surprised by the modern look of the place. Her first impression, even her second impression, had been that at least this part of the medieval-styled 'castle' was true to its category in every meaning of the word. The impression of a castle was still pronounced, but it got quite a futuristic look, what with the lights and painting.

They sat, Harry offering a cup of tea to the young woman and getting one for himself.

Melissa arranged her Dictaphone, placed it in the middle of the desk and procured two sets of three pages filled with questions.

"These are the questions I would like to ask. Are there any you won't answer or rather want I didn't ask?"

Harry checked the list, glancing at the reporter from time to time. The woman was, if anything, quite thorough and from the looks of it, incredibly curious. The subjects concerned the museum, his professional life, his personal life, questions of general interest and even some political inclined questions. But, he had to admit, none of them really went over the line. Some dared and challenged him, of course, but it was nothing alike his experience with Rita Skeeter and consorts.

"I don't have any issues with this list, though I won't give an elaborate answer to each."

Melissa smiled. "All right." She pushed the 'record' button. "Let's begin. I understand that you received instructions from the Her Royal Highness to place your private collection and the artifacts you auctioned in a museum. How did that exactly go?"

"As you might remember, the Queen visited my estate with His Royal Highness Prince Philip nearly seven months ago. The visit was both a surprise and an honor on my part, I assure you, so I decided to show her a bit more than my usual customers get to see. An example of this were the graves of William the Conqueror and Charlemagne, in fact they were placed in this very room."

Melissa looked around her, surprised.

"You made your office in here?"

Harry nodded. "With the Museum built, I decided to give this room a different purpose. Her Majesty was quite surprised by what she saw. In hindsight, I should have recognized the hints passing between her and her consort, but I didn't. We just had lunch when the Queen asked me how I would feel about parting with the things I've gathered. And well, from one thing came another, I received the help of a lot of people working at the palace, gave the permission to use part of my land..."

"According to rumors, the ownership of the Royal Ouroboros Museum will be split between yourself and the Queen. What is the real deal behind it, and what exactly are your contributions?"

"The rumors are at least partly true this time," said Harry, "At this moment in time, it's true that the royal family and myself are the main investors of the ROM. The Queen invested one million pounds in the project, I donated one million pounds. I provided the land on which the museum is built and leased the majority of my collection to the museum. Because I can't simply give away my source of income, artifacts I've worked really hard for me to get, 25 percent of the revenue will be used to slowly buy all of my artifacts.

"50 percent will go directly to the museum, while the remaining 25 percent will be used to invest in other artifacts and facilities. In simple terms, you could say that last part will be put in one major savings account used to buy from other sources or loan a topic-specific exposition. When all of my leased items are bought, that share of the profits will go to the royal family to repay their investment. It's a very long-term business plan, spanning decades, but it's a good one."

"What was or is the most expensive item in your collection?"

"The graves of those important historical figures are without a doubt priceless, but they were donations on my part. As for an object? I suppose the sword I've found near Exeter that is presumed to be the 'Excalibur' sword of the Arthurian legend. It at least bears that name. It has six large diamonds encrusted, three on each side of the hilt, and does date from those days. The diamonds on their own are worth two million pound each, but the total package was estimated at thirteen million pounds. It is, after all, some proof that Arthur Pendagron once lived."

"But it'll take years to pay for something like that!"

Harry smiled. "Which is why I gave the most expensive artifacts to the museum instead of leasing them. I couldn't possibly find someone willing to spend that much money on a rusty sword anyway."

"You'll be twenty at the end of July and already you are vice-director of a rising museum. Your total net worth is estimated by our financial advisers to be approximately 118.6 million pounds. The Sun recently elected you as most eligible bachelor of the year. The Queen has had lunch with you and your findings have instigated chaos in the archaeological world. Tell me, Mr Potter, what is the secret to your success?"

"I don't think there is one way or method towards success. I'm more convinced it's a combination of character and circumstances. I didn't have a happy childhood, my aunt and uncle didn't like me and they let it show. They spread lies to the neighbors, I never had any friends as a kid, but would, given the chance, want it any different? I don't think so. I learned from an early age to be responsible, to think for myself, to survive.

"When I went to the boarding school my parents attended, people had high expectations of me. I didn't always understand what they wanted me to do, or maybe I did and tried to ignore it, but it definitely was a time in my life that helped define me. I quit school when I was seventeen and decided to do something I always was denied as a kid: go treasure hunting. And I'm good at it, my current situations proves that.

"I think that if you really want to be successful, if you have the drive to mean something, you will be and you will mean something. That doesn't always have to be from a materialistic point of view of course, sometimes getting married and creating a family of your own is more than enough to succeed in life. But neither of those come easily. You have to be strong, you have to know what you want and when to grab the opportunity. But you can't go about it rigidly either, you have to allow your impulsive side to come out from time to time. Sometimes you have to take risks and hope for the best.

"I think that the best attitude to achieve something is to simply be yourself, acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses, and don't expect from others what you can't do yourself. It's what makes the difference between a good leader and a leader , what separates average from well done."

"You've mentioned getting married and having children as one way to success; can we expect a future Mrs Potter or is your candidature for most eligible bachelor still valid?"

Harry smiled softly. "It's still valid. I'm not on the lookout for a potential girlfriend. If I meet someone and we hit it off, sure, but love simply is one of those things that needs to follow a natural course. You can't force it, not if you want it to be genuine. Besides, I have plenty of years ahead of me. I have patience."

"A completely different subject now... Can you tell our readers why they should visit the Royal Ouroboros Museum?"

"Because we're a new organization, we're able to benefit from decades of experience from other museums, we looked around at what is available, what the possibilities were. Quite frankly, Ms Taylor, what we saw, we found lacking. Our world's growing and changing daily, the generation of today isn't what the one of yesterday was, so we tried to create a niche in the museum world. We used modern technology and all what's at our disposal to develop an interactive way to get our message across. We have virtual simulations of battles long fought, actors playing roles, audio and video messages and documentaries, I sometimes really felt as if we were bringing Disneyland to the museums, and I liked that. Kids will love, parents secretly too, people who otherwise don't care much about our history might find themselves hooked to our often gruesome past, while the historians and academical inclined will be suitably impressed by the things presented.

"The Royal Ouboros Museum fills a hole in history that doesn't get much attention. The first half of the Dark Ages are to most truly dark. We know all about the period before 500 AD, we know the most important events since 1,000 AD, but what do know of Beowulf's era? Where do we separate truth from fiction concerning Arthur and his Knights? The tale we spin isn't always a positive one but it isn't pessimistic either; through various figures in history, some famous others unknown, we make a sketch of that time.

"If you're curious or simply want a day out with your family but can't think of anything specific, the ROM is you destination."

"I noticed a lot of people walking in and out some of the buildings, is there still much work to do?"

"That were the gentlemen from our IT department. They've finished the final touches on our roleplaying life-sized computer game."

"Can you tell us a bit more about them?"

"I'll tell you about one of them, I don't want to spoil all the fun, do I? One of the games take place during one of the sessions of the Round Table, where the visitor has to assume the role of a member and decide on the outcome of various problems. The visitor will then be transported to a battle field or sent on a mission. It'sa highly advanced computer game made by the company that creates the Final Fantasy series with the purpose of educating the player in medieval history."

"Are you going out on any expeditions in the near future?"

"I haven't planned anything yet, but it's a good possibility that I'll go relic hunting when the museum's all set up. I know of a few locations that might be worth it. At the moment though I'm working closely with the government on a longterm project as well."

"And what does this project entail?"

"It's actually an international organization compromising prominent scientists of the Commonwealth of Nations that aims itself at the betterment of our world. It's still in the early stages of its existence, but it's looking good. A major part of the project focuses on finding medical cures to numerous diseases, increasing the food production on the African continent and finding environmental-friendly power sources. It's a British initiative at the moment, but we're hoping that after the next Heads of the Commonwealth of Nations Meetings, more countries will step in."

"And how does a relic hunter and museum vice-director like you fit in such an organization?"

"I was asked to be one of their spokesmen," replied Harry, "They wanted someone young, prominent and innovative to represent them, I guess they were impressed by what I've done with my life so far and decided to take a chance. It didn't hurt that they use a mythological creature as their namesake."

"Do tell me more," inquired Melissa, curious and excited to get another scoop for The Guardian . This interview was one of the best things to happen to her and it didn't even involve scandals.

"The organization's called Phoenix Operations after Greek mythology. A phoenix is a symbol for rebirth and immortality. The organization's aims are to rebirth prosperity and stability in a lot of countries. As for the immortality part, well, anyone that manages to invent even one cure or technological advancement is assured to be well-remembered."

Sprouting the right amount of half-truths would create a blanket of confusion and uncertainty that would be much more effective in befuddling hostile elements of the civilizations, without casting any suspicion on them. What he told her about Phoenix Operations was true, he simply didn't say that the betterment of the world included far more than what he already said. It was a tactic proposed by him that met surprisingly a lot of resistance with the men and women of Homeworld Security. It was a bit hypocritical and unintelligent of the secret service employees, but he supposed everybody had their faults. It sometimes surprised him though how Slytherin he'd become since the death of Albus Dumbledore, and he didn't use the term in a Voldemort kind of way.

"I wanted to thank you for the invitation," Willy Granger said as he shook Harry's hand.

Juliette Granger, born Juliette Oxford, used a more direct way and kissed his cheek in thanks.

Harry's eyebrows rose slightly. He'd always thought of Hermione's parents as stiff, upper class kind of people, but so far they acted quite laid back.

Hermione was glancing away from her parents when he looked at her.

"I see where your daughter got her beauty from," he said to Juliette.

"Aren't you a charmer," she patted his hand. "We've been curious to see for ourselves what your objects are all about ever since Hermy came home telling us about your new home."

Hermione's cheeks reddened slightly. He found it quite ironic that good old Grawp's nickname for his friend was the same her parents used.

"So how's university life treating you?" he asked her.

"Fine. Musical history isn't really interesting, though the lessons aren't as simplistic as History was in high school."

"Do you know whether they replaced that ghost in the old place already?"

"I don't think so."

"I'm glad you came, I don't get to see a lot of our kind anymore," said Harry, "but I'm afraid I have to go, the mayor and director Webster are going to cut the lint."

The two dentists and their daughter, Art History student, watched him go. Willy turned to the youngest member of the family. "What does your community say about him living outside their influence?"

"Some of them aren't happy about it. Last time I saw Ron, he told me of rumors going on that the Wizengammot was going to fine people that spend more than half of their time in the normal world. Of course with the Slytherin and Le Fey's graves being opened to public next week that rumor's probably already in the trash bin. Morgan Le Fey was only a myth before he found her."

"He seems to do that a lot, finding proof that legends are true."

"I swear that boy's going to find evidence of aliens on Earth one day the way he's going about his life."

From his position next to the mayor of Blackpool, Harry smiled. Through the loudspeakers, New World Symphony by Dvorák was playing. The game was afoot. The galaxy officially wouldn't be the same anymore.

"Daniel Jackson," 'Murray' called.

"Yes, T'e-Murray?"

"The man next to the fat man, he bears the mark of the vengeance goddess."

"The vengeance goddess? Who's that? And are you talking about Harry Potter and that odd scar on his forehead?"

"No one knows who the goddess is. In Jaffa legend, she sends forth her avengers to meet out justice, often ending with the death of the Goa'uld. The avengers always had a zigzag mark on their person; according my forefathers' tales, they are impossible to kill."

"When was the last time these avengers appeared?"

"Thousands of years ago; their existence is legendary, but passed on from generation to generation, especially the words of the last avenger for they spoke of the annihilation of the gods when they would reappear." The former Prime nodded to himself. "I will inform my fellow Jaffa of the avenger's return. More will break away from their masters with that knowledge in mind."

Daniel wanted to tell his friend that he shouldn't get his hopes up on a mere legend, but he refrained. In the end, there was nothing wrong with a little bit of hope. Besides, if it made the Jaffa easier to deal with... Of course the fact that some British man had such a mark, it was a little suspicious, especially in his field of work.

He made a mental note to look into this Harry Potter a bit more when their holiday was over, but for the moment he was here to satisfy his curiosity and see Britain's legacy for himself. And Teal'c of course. The Colonel had given the man a rather one-sided view on human culture, it was high time the Jaffa was introduced to a subject that had nothing to do with science fiction.


	2. Rise of the Commonwealth

**The Astria Porta Project – Part Two : Rise of the Commonwealth**

**Disclaimer** I don't own the Harry Potter franchise, nor the Stargate franchise. Other, rich, people do. I also apologize if several people in this story aren't portrayed with sufficient respect; I try, but I only have my imagination to base off.

* * *

"Master," an annoying voice woke him up. He groaned. The house-elf ignored him. "Master be needing in the dungeons, his Muggles want to see him." He had to admit it was funny that Kreacher kept on insisting he was taking over the world by using the Muggles against each other. Oh well, every man his disillusion, n'est-ce pas?

"Tell them I'll be there in ten minutes."

He wondered what they wanted that was so urgent, his shift started in three hours.

He left his bedroom and crept inside the shower. Five minutes later, he returned clad in his boxers. Opening his wardrobe, he hesitated on what to wear. He had the option between his Armani suits, his Louis Vuitton suits, his Guardian uniform and his regular suits. He had robes as well, but they didn't exactly fit with the activities downstairs.

He chose his uniform. If an emergency had come up, he'd need the protection and equipment. The uniform was in fact nothing more than a pair of pants made out of basilisk hide - thankfully centuries old creatures didn't decay that quickly, an enchanted black dragonhide shirt and a long cloak made out of the hide of the dragon from the Triwizard's first task, one of his first kills and a very satisfying at that. On the cloak's backside, a red phoenix went up in flames, a crossed wand and sword depicted in the background. The Guardian's logo.

He put his wand in a holder on the inside of the cloak, checked for his Disintegrator, the Terran Zatnickatel, put the translator device in his ear, activated his energy field and powered up the tablet nano-computer attached to the right inner side of the cloak. He checked his appearance in the mirror a final time and left for the second floor of his quarters at Adder Castle, where a room housed a Ring Transporter - modified and produced by the gents in Newfoundland.

By the time he reached the room, his computer was on line and updating the base's logbook records. Except for Maggie Brown returning home sooner than her shift ended due to sickness, nothing extraordinary was logged. He checked the Porta schedule. White Dove Beta left on a mission yesterday evening to establish closer cooperation with the Tok'ra. That must be it.

He transported himself to the dungeon level. The guard on duty raised his Disintegrator briefly, recognized him and lowered the weapon.

"Good morning, Knight Cornwall," he greeted. "Had any problems?"

"No, sir, there were no problems."

"That's good to hear. Someone needed me, do you know who?"

"Director Daniel Leigh and Knight Basil Thompson are waiting for you in the director's office."

He made his way to the head of Homeworld Security's office - coincidentally situated directly beneath his own office in the castle. He knocked on the door, but didn't wait for an answer to go in.

"You wanted to speak to me, Daniel?" The man might be in a way his superior, they had worked closely with each other for the past three years, all the way from Approject's inauguration.

"Good, you're here," said Daniel. "As you probably know, White Dove Beta visited Tok'ra headquarters a couple of hours ago."

"How did it go?"

"We have a better deal with them than the Americans got. The Tok'ra are a bit disappointed in the feedback they get from the US and impressed by our progress, on a galactic and planetary scale. The fact that we represent one third of the world population doesn't hurt either. SGC only has the quarter million citizens," answered Knight Thompson.

"And why am I needed?"

"We would have asked Vice-Guardian Su Li to do this, but with her pregnancy... We have to take into account the unborn child."

It had been a surprise for him to find the Muggleborn Asian girl at the Le Fey site for five successive days. He'd eventually invited her in for a cup of tea and he had a wonderful time analyzing her character. He played with the idea of making Hermione his Vice-Guardian, the magical backup of the Blackpool base, but the girl cramped up too much in stress situations. That she unconsciously looked down on her parents and felt ashamed for them didn't help either. Su Li had a more neutral perspective of life and while she wasn't on par with his abilities, she possessed an incredible intelligence and open mind, two traits that were rather important for the job.

Daniel continued. "The Tok'ra are playing a dangerous game right now. They've allowed a Goa'uld in their ranks - brought in by the Jaffa working with SGC of all people - and are using him to spread disinformation. There is a very real chance the location of their base will be conveyed to Apophis.

"Taking into account that their constant moving from one planet to another interferes with their objective of taking down the Goa'ulds from their thrones, White Dove Beta disclosed the existence of the Fidelius charm."

Harry immediately understood the implications. Homeworld Security wanted him to leave Earth and cast the charm for their allies.

"You are aware of the risk involved?"

"It's been cleared by Chieftain Scott, he said he would send you a message. Wasp Gamma will accompany you."

He checked his computer, sure enough, waiting in his inbox was the Chieftain's approval/order.

"Alright," said Harry. "Let me check my agenda first." From an inner pocket, he took his PDA. The difference between his two handheld computers was startling, where the Avalon Carbon OS computer booted up immediately, was a thousand times more powerful, his PDA needed five minutes to start, its software - a Microsoft Windows derivative - was simply said archaic and contained so much bugs, Harry was surprised it actually worked. "Let's see... I have a lunch appointment with Jules Webster tomorrow, and have to attend a conference in London the day after tomorrow."

"I'll tell Knight Vaughn to gather his team in an hour," proposed Knight Thompson.

"Excellent, if that's all? I'm going to get some breakfast."

Daniel nodded at him, while Thompson rose as well.

Wasp Gamma was waiting for him in the terminal; the room housing the Astria Porta.

The Wasp teams' uniforms resembled the SAS uniforms, though they were made of a lighter material. Their emblem was a wasp with the Greek letter of their team in front of it, placed on the left shoulder of their jackets, the Phoenix logo directly above it. Their shield devices were different from the one he carried, they were attached to their forearms and shaped like a big watch. They didn't tell the time of course, instead they displayed the power level and the shield's density.

The battle strategies they primarily used were heavily inspired by old Greek and Roman strategies, something their shields were specialized in. Each Vice-Knight carried two Disintegrators and one long-range energy rifle. Disintegrator grenades were also part of their standard equipments, grenades that blasted three times, one of the Jamaican branch's ideas.

It was impressive how far Phoenix was now in comparison to three years ago. From little less than three hundred employees to a worldwide organization of four thousand people. In total there were twenty-three wizards and witches acting as Guardians and Vice-Guardians, twenty for the regular branches and one for the Terran Space Force.

The latter didn't have a lot to do yet since the battleships were still under construction and the final modifications to their hyperspace-capable engines were still being made, but the solar system equivalent to space-fighters were operational.

The Terran hyperdrive wasn't a hyperdrive like the Goa'uld and other races used. The concept used was inspired and heavily based on the principles of Portkey travel, where the point origin and the destination point basically overlapped, much like wormholes, and the destination point pulled you through hyperspace to your destination. That wizards and witches casually used this method of transportation was quite a feat.

The Portdrive wasn't as user-friendly as the hyperdrive of the Goa'uld transportation vessel Harry unearthed, with all the unpleasant side-effects of Portkey travel present, but it worked much faster than the existing hyperdrives. It was estimated that Portdrives made the ship travel forty times the speed of light.

Phoenix India specialized themselves in designing the spaceships, while Phoenix Australia and Phoenix South Africa build them. At the moment, four Eagle-class battleships were being made at the same time. Two of them would get semi-permanent positions in geostationary orbit around Earth, at least until the Canadian branch finished works on the defensive satellite designs and the Sri Lankan base produced them.

The public face of Phoenix Operations, represented through the branches in New Zealand, Mozambique, Cameroon and Kenya mainly, was performing miracles as well. A Goa'uld sarcophagi was taken apart piece by piece, the theory behind them studied and healing devices spread to special hospitals in all of the Commonwealth nations. They cured the majority of diseases, even AIDS, though the usage of the Terran equivalent of the sarcophagi was limited to one time a person. The addictive component, unfortunately, was still present.

The devices to stimulate food production were proving to be quite difficult. There was nothing to work from, so all the scientists working on them had, was the theory behind everything they already discovered. The African branches were however working hard on the issue. Their continent was plagued heavily by famine, something which they wanted to solve as soon as possible. The process did benefit the peace in all of the regions, race disputes were decreasing heavily under the knowledge that there existed for more dangerous threats in their society and nations and that only through cooperation they would overcome these problems.

At the moment they were blocked slightly in their options by the Americans' silence on the galactic matter. The official stance was that they would only come clean with the rest of the world when the Americans did, but as time went on, more and more people talked about taking the first step. Harry personally thought that if the issue wasn't addressed in the United Nations by the USA by the time the battleships were operational, the Commonwealth of Nations would.

"Knight Abigail," greeted Harry.

"Guardian Potter," Abigail saluted.

"How is your wife?"

"Fine, sir."

"Excellent." He looked at his magical second-in-command and his partner. "Guardian Brooks, Vice-Guardian Li, when I step through that Porta the tea-time protocol is in place until I return."

Wycliffe nodded. "I'll spread the word."

"Do you want me to close your Floo access?" asked Su.

"And keep an eye on the site upstairs." Officially, Harry's wizarding occupation was heading Ouroboros Warlocks , the wizarding part of the Royal Ouroboros Museum had gone through a lot of expansion in the couple of years since the place was opened. By now it wasn't simply the final burial sites of Salazar Slytherin and Morgan Le Fey, it was an extensive research center of the pre-Hogwarts era of wizarding Europe, with a parlor and bar available to the public during the day. Su Li was registered as his business partner with the Ministry of Magic.

"I'll tell Romilda to be more careful."

Romilda Vane, the girl who tried to use Amortentia on him, but got Ronald Weasley in return, had grown up since his sixth year. She still gossiped a lot, but underneath that airhead exterior, Romilda could be quite vicious and calculating.

Her plans, luckily, didn't involve Harry's romantic life anymore, she learned that lesson rather quickly once she started working for them. She wasn't exactly prime Guardian material, but if push came to shove, the wizard and witch of Phoenix Britain didn't doubt her trustworthiness. In the event of something happening to both Harry and Su, Romilda could at least temporarily replace them.

Harry did something on his computer. "I sent instructions on where to find my will and several ideas to throw into the Guardian Council."

The Guardian Council, comparable to the Chieftain Council, was the platform through which all the witches and wizards associated to Approject could share tips and tricks with each other - or decide on any wizarding world related matter.

"All right," continued Harry, "let's get this show on the road."

Knight Abigail addressed his team. "Vice-Knights, queen sting formation!"

Wasp Gamma immediately assumed position, with one Vice-Knight leading and the others arranged so that they formed a V. Harry as the 'wasp queen' was behind them. Once they stepped through the gate, their formation would change into an O-shape and their shields activated. It was a purely defensive tactic, but just what was required for this sort of thing.

"Chevron 1 encoded. Chevron 2 encoded," a voice droned from the speakers, until, "Chevron 7 encoded. Wormhole established."

Harry looked at the vertical liquid of the Astria Porta. He'd never been off world for obvious reasons, but he'd read the reports of the teams, seen the video recordings of their missions and met the odd alien entity finding his or her way to their base. He was by no means frightened, but he was an adventurous lad with the habit of getting into very surreal situations.

They walked through. His hand itched to get his wand in his hand, something foreign to the desert landscape they were in was present - he didn't like the thought.

The wormhole disengaged.

"Knight," he was about to speak to the Wasp team leader, when six people suddenly surrounded them, their Zatnickatels aimed at them. "Never mind."

"Drop your weapons!"

"Jolinar of the Tok'ra expects us," said Vice-Knight Tripeau, a Canadian recruit.

The men lowered their weapons slightly.

Wasp Gamma didn't disable their shields, so Harry didn't either.

"Very well," said the apparent leader. "Follow us."

They walked several meters to what presumably was the Ring Transporter to their facilities. Sure enough, several rings came floating upwards and relocated them to an underground base - mainly decorated in an ancient Egyptian style. It seemed that despite having separated themselves off the Goa'uld and assuming a completely different stance regarding hosts and domination, the Tok'ra didn't differ all that much from their counterparts.

The team leader of the guards talked to his underground colleague before returning to the surface with his companions.

"You are here to help us secure our headquarters?" a middle-aged man queried.

Harry nodded. "If everything goes well, you won't need to move to other planets anymore."

"Very well, let me guide you to the meeting room assigned for this endeavor."

"What about the Goa'uld present?"

"He is in a meeting discussing our future plans and will be engaged for the remainder of the day."

"Good. We don't need the enemy to know of our presence and advancements."

The man inclined his head before walking them through several corridors until they arrived in a room. The half of Wasp Gamma remained outside, guarding the entrance closely. They were joined by two Tok'ra guards. The other half followed Harry inside and assumed positions at the door, Knight Abigail sitting next to him at the table in the middle of the room.

Harry regarded their allies closely. There were three of them, a man who looked to be in between his sixties-seventies, a not entirely unattractive woman in her thirties and a man of the same age.

"I am Harry Potter, Guardian of Phoenix Operations Great Britain," he introduced himself.

The elder man spoke first. "I am General Jacob Carter." He inclined his head momentarily. "I am Selmak, one of the oldest Tok'ra in existence."

The man followed."I am Martouf, the host." The symbiote took control. "I am Lantash."

"I am Anise," stated the woman. "I understand you have a device that cloaks our base?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't know what White Dove told you, but what I am offering to you isn't technology at all. It's called the Fidelius charm and a piece of magic." He put his hand in the inside of his coat and took his wand in his hand. "This is a wand and the tool with which I'm going to perform the Fidelius."

"Magic doesn't exist," denied Anise.

"On Earth it does," contradicted Harry. "There's a complete subclass of humans that can do magic. I'm one of them. We live completely separated from the non-magical humans of our planet and uphold the highest secrecy you can think of. Only the parents of wizards and witches born in the regular world and the government leaders know of our kind, which probably is a good thing. Magical people in general aren't very open to other point of views and look down upon non-magical users, much like the Goa'uld regard humans I suppose."

"I didn't know that," said Jacob Carter.

"You wouldn't," Harry commented. "If anybody witnesses something magical happening, their memory would be erased. It's been like that for the past three hundred years."

Martouf/Lantash took it all in stride; as Tok'ra they'd seen enough extraordinary things, this simply was one more. "This Fidelius charm, how exactly does it work?"

"In general terms the charm has three elements: the secret, consisting of the subject and the location, and the Secret Keeper. The secret basically is the subject that is being hidden, in your case that would be something along the lines of 'the Tok'ra headquarters', and where the subject is hidden. Again, using your situation, the secret would be something along the lines of 'the Tok'ra headquarters is located on Vorash'

"And thirdly, the Secret Keeper. He or she is the only person capable of disclosing the secret to another. So let's say I cast the Fidelius charm on your base and appointed Selmak as the Secret Keeper. Everybody except Selmak will suddenly forget where they are, no matter how hard they'd try to remember it. In order for me to know the secret, Selmak would have to tell it to me.

"But say I was the only one he/she told the secret to and Martouf here came to me, asking where he was. I might want to tell him, but I simply wouldn't be able to. My throat would constrict, my thoughts wander to a completely different subject. I wouldn't be able to write it down or type it, because my hands would block."

"And what about me?" questioned the General.

"If I'd appoint Selmak as the Secret Keeper, he/she would have to tell you. You would be in the same boat as I. Only when Selmak would take control, would he/she be able to tell the secret."

"Does it has to be said in person or can a message be used?"

"As long as Selmak would write it down or convey it, there shouldn't be any problems. It does pose a certain danger of course. Written messages can be intercepted quite easily and then the secret would be out."

Anise doubted. "How can we be sure you won't simply be this Secret Keeper yourself?"

"I already carry a secret," responded he."I'm the Secret Keeper of the British base. And you can't carry more than two secrets."

"What about sensors or observation from orbit?" queried Jacob.

"So far we haven't been detected, not by the Americans, not by the few Goa'uld wanting to attack us, not by the Asgard who've visited our planet. We've done our own tests in our Daggers."

"Daggers?" Martouf wondered.

Harry smirked. "The Dagger-class space-fighters are our answer to the Goa'uld's Death Gliders. We have ten squadrons of 5 fighters each operational."

The eyebrows of the Tok'ra rose. "You are advanced enough to build spaceships?"

Harry inclined his head. "We're having a bit of difficulty with our hyperdrives, but I guess that's to be expected when your first model wants to reach forty times the speed of light."

Anise blinked. "Forty times the speed of light?"

"We started working from a Goa'uld hyperdrive, learned the principles and theory involved. Someone came across something magical people can do, the scientists studied that , combined the two concepts et voila."

"Would you be willing to give us one of your hyperdrives when it's finished?" asked she.

"I doubt it," Harry shook his head, "I'm not the one who has a say over that aspect of Phoenix Operations. One of our policies is that everything we develop should be primarily used to advance our people and planet."

"We understand," spoke Selmak.

"Good. Now, have you thought about a Secret Keeper yet? It's going to have to be someone who doesn't leave the planet much, who is trustworthy and knows deceit."

"What function does a Secret Keeper on Earth usually fulfill?" informed Jacob.

"Guardian," smiled Harry. "Or in other words, they are in charge of the base's security."

"I will go and talk with the High Councilor," announced Martouf, "and see what he thinks about the issue." He rose and left the chamber.

"If I may be so bold," Anise cautiously broached the subject, "but what is that scar on your forehead?"

Harry's expression blanked just a tiny bit. "It is a sign that I survived certain death when I was a baby."

"You are immortal?" The awed tone made it quite clear what she thought of that. Not even symbiote's lived forever after all.

"No, I'm just incredibly lucky," denied he. "And a bit like weed I suppose. No matter how hard you might try to get rid of me, it'll never work completely."

"Oh."

"Why did you ask?"

"The shape of your scar is almost an exact copy of the symbol of a race called the Avengers. They wore it on their forehead as well."

"The Avengers? Haven't heard of those yet," mused he.

"They were a mysterious group, appearing and disappearing in the galaxy for a number of centuries. They opposed the Goa'uld, killed quite a few of them and claimed to be lead by the goddess of vengeance. When the last of them was seen, the Avengers warned that the next time they'd appear, the Goa'uld's reign would end. They have been the subjects of many myths and legends in the galaxy." She paused. "A while ago Teal'c, the Jaffa working with SG1, told us he saw one of them on Earth, even mentioned your name."

Harry's eyebrows furrowed. "I know that he saw me once, but aside that I don't really know anything about a goddess or Avengers." He shrugged. "Maybe there's some truth in that story, maybe my scar is a sign of something coming. If the idea gives people hope or strengthens their resolve, let them."

"You know, I've been wondering about this for a while now," began Jacob, "but aren't you that bloke that found all those graves a couple of years ago and started that museum?"

"That's me."

"You're a versatile kid," the General commented. Selmak took control. "You are not interested in becoming one of us? Your skills could be put in good use with the Tok'ra."

"Ah no thank you. I've got my duty to the people of Earth. Besides, I don't know whether a symbiote would be able to take control of me."

At their curious gaze, he elaborated: "Entities have tried to possess me in the past with, I believe, far more effective means than a symbiote."

"We share a body with our host, we don't possess," Selma corrected.

"I know that, but still... Magic has a tendency to be sentient and unpredictable in its pure form. I wouldn't want to risk it."

"A pity, you would be an excellent host."

Martouf came back, followed by one of the guards that accompanied them earlier on.

Harry looked at the man. "You are aware of the dangers involved in this and the responsibility this will take." The man nodded. "What's your symbiote's name?"

"Atosh."

"Okay. Let Atosh in control."

Harry mentally prepared himself. 'The Tok'ra can be found on Vorash. The Tok'ra can be found on Vorash. The Tok'ra can be found on Vorash.' "Fidelius!"

A ball of light appeared at the end of his wand. The secret already was in effect, with every person on base confused as to where their surroundings were.

Harry moved the energetic secret towards Atosh. It burrowed itself inside the host's body and went further until it disappeared in the symbiote. The man's eyes cleared immediately and regarded the British wizard in awe.

"Now you can spread the word to the people in this room and continue with the rest of the base. Make sure you're always shielded or always have someone with you when you're in the proximity of the Goa'uld. If you die, the secret is out and you lose your advantage."

Atosh nodded. To the others in the room he said: "The Tok'ra can be found on Vorash."

Their expression cleared immediately.

"Magic does exist!" whispered the General.

Harry smiled slightly. "If you're ever interested in visiting... Phoenix Operations Britain can be found beneath the Royal Ouroboros Museum in Blackpool, Great Britain. Now I'm afraid I have to go, our base is in lockdown as long as I'm here."

They nodded.

"I'll have one of my men escort you to the Stargate in a minute," said Atosh.

Harry Potter, aged 23, couldn't help but blink at the different mails he received in one night. One came from the current chairman of the Chieftain Council, the Australian Leonard Griffith. Another was a memo of the Guardian Council, with a third sent by the Queen herself.

Dear Sir,

Following the completion of the Terran Space Force's four battleships yesterday afternoon, a video conference of the Chieftain Council and Homeworld Security took place. In this meeting a new course of action has been decided concerning the USA's Stargate Command and the international cooperation required to bring Phoenix Operations to the next level in our development.

A meeting with representatives of the United States is scheduled within two weeks at the Air Force Academy in Colorado wherein the existence of the true nature of Phoenix Operations will be revealed as well as an invitation extended to join our organization.

Because of our close interaction with several wizards and witches, your presence is required for this meeting. Your Vice-Guardian will act in your stead during your absence.

The transport vessel 'Zeus' of my branch will fly you to Denver.

Yours faithfully,

Chieftain Leonard Griffith

Phoenix Operations Gibson

The Guardian Council's mail was something along the same line.

Dear Mr Potter,

In light of the scheduled meeting with the USA and the wizarding representative required for the meeting, we considered who we would send. The answer was clear to us, however. You were the first of our kind associated with Phoenix Operations and the one who contacted each of us. It is only normal that the man who started all of this speak for all of us.

Yours sincerely,

Guardian Saul M'mbamba

Phoenix Operations Cameroon

Not that the Queen's mail was any different...

Dear Sir,

In response to the scheduled conference session with the United States of America, HRH Queen Elizabeth II gives you permission to speak on her behalf regarding the future of the Commonwealth venture 'Astria Porta Project' and in particular the prospect of 'Phoenix Operations'.

It is within HRH the Queen's interest to assure the continuity of the Singapore Declaration, and in particular the promotion of democracy, human rights, egalitarianism, free trade and world peace.

Her Royal Highness's Prime Minister and Minister of Defense will accompany you to this meeting.

Yours sincerely,

Her Royal Majesty Elizabeth II

Queen of the United Kingdom

Supreme Governor of the Church of England

Head of the Commonwealth

It was a bit overkill to get all these orders, but he supposed it was to insure he truly was present. He made a quick call to Amanda Russel, his personal assistant at the museum.

"Hi Amanda, it's Harry," said he through his mobile phone.

"Mr Potter! What can I do for you?"

It was a bit ridiculous she always spoke so formal to him, especially when you considered she was twice his age.

"Can you call off anything I might have in two weeks? And for the rest of that week?"

"You have several meetings with journalists and an appearance on the BBC in that week, sir," she said. "I don't think it's a good idea to call them off..."

"Damn, that show on the BBC, was it that nice talk show?"

"Yes, sir."

"Too bad, but I can't get out of it. I have to join in on a meeting in the USA concerning Phoenix Operations."

"..." there was some silence while Amanda processed the information, "I think they'll understand, Mr Potter."

"Thanks. I'll see you around." He closed the call.

"There won't be any harm in letting Zeus pick us up above our base?" Harry asked Matthew Scott. Zeus was one of the designs of the Indian branch the Australians decided to construct when work on the spaceships was mostly done. It was Phoenix Operations' civilian plane built with all of the technology developed in the past few years. Slightly bigger than Air Force One and a more triangular shape, it was unlike any plane ever made. The fact that it was capable of flying to Pluto without any problems was an oddity as well.

"It's not like it has to land, we can simply use the Ring Transporter," Matthew answered.

"So where's Daniel?"

"Had to pick up some files in his office."

"Who's going to be present from the Americans?"

"General George Hammond, Lieutenant-Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, a Senator Kinsey, the US Secretary of Defense Arthur Simms, us three and the staff of Zeus ."

"At least we won't be underrepresented."

Daniel Leigh came rushing in. "Sorry I'm late." He looked at Matthew and Harry. "The Tok'ra just sent word to us, the Americans have eliminated Cronus a couple of days ago. The Goa'uld in their ranks tried to get away from them. He's dead as well. Arthur's sent Wasp Gamma to their base to reach a mutual strategy now that the balance has changed."

"The pace is picking up," murmured their Guardian.

They walked from Harry's office at the museum to the Transporter room. When the okay was given, they transported themselves aboard their civilian space-vessel. The hour long flight was used to prepare a meeting room and go through all of the aspects they wanted to discuss. Soon enough they landed in America. Because he had the highest function, Daniel stepped outside to greet the American delegation.

"Good morning," he said. "I'm Daniel Leigh, director of Homeworld Security. Excuse me for breaking protocol, but I am going to ask you to come on board. It's the most secure place for the meeting we're about to have."

The Americans glanced at each other.

"How secure are we talking?" informed Simms.

"More secure than your Air Force One."

That seemed to be enough for them to agree.

"Please follow me." He guided them to the meeting room. "Mr Simms, Mr Kinsey, General Hammond, Lieutenant-Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, Doctor Jackson, Teal'c, I would like to introduce you to Chieftain Scott and Guardian Potter of Phoenix Operations."

"I remember seeing you at that museum!" Jackson exclaimed.

Teal'c affirmed that. "Indeed, I saw you too."

Harry held in a smile. "I was aware of your presence long before you came as well."

"I must say, Mr Leigh," Simms stated, "that the president was surprised by Queen Elizabeth's request."

Daniel nodded. "And I'm sure you're all wondering why exactly you are here?"

Matthew spoke through the intercom. "Lord Alders, you have a go for lift-off."

"Affirmative, Chieftain. Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready for departure. Do not open the doors or windows. Our destination is the high orbit of Earth, have a nice flight."

"Excuse me," O'Neill interrupted, "but did the pilot just say 'high orbit'?"

"That is part of why you all are here. You see, the United Kingdom and in extension the Commonwealth of Nations have been aware of the Stargate program for three years already."

"You have?" asked Kinsey.

"Your NID isn't exactly subtle in their dealings, just as the copy of Stargate Command's databases isn't protected all that well."

The Senator blanched at that.

"How come you're contacting us only now?" questioned Hammond.

Daniel looked at Matthew, who answered. "The British royal house has been in possession of a Stargate for several centuries; once we knew what it was for and obtained enough equipment and manpower, we started our own program: the Astria Porta project."

"But it's impossible to use two Stargates with the same address at the same time," objected Carter.

"Not if you reprogram the point of origin of your Porta," refuted the Chieftain. "Our program compromises two organizations: Phoenix Operations and Homeworld Security. Director Leigh's agency oversees the workings of Phoenix Operations, as well as provides intelligence and strategy when dealing with the enemy."

"I told you, Daniel Jackson, that Harry Potter was an Avenger," Teal'c commented.

"I didn't think you were serious," murmured the archaeologist.

"Aside exploring the galaxy," continued Matthew, "Phoenix Operations is also responsible for defending Earth and developing technology that advances our world. You might remember reading reports of the healing pods our public facade distributes that heal even HIV? They are based on a Goa'uld sarcophagi we studied."

"I've been telling the President for years we need to do that," said Kinsey.

Harry spoke up. "The devices we study are all machines and objects I found on Earth, hidden all over Europe. We make it a point not to take things from planets with civilizations."

Arthur Simms' expression cleared up. "So that's why all the economies of the Commonwealth rose so quickly."

"Phoenix Operations has bases in eleven countries all over the world," continued Matthew. "From the United Kingdom to Canada," eyebrows lifted at that, "to South-Africa, India and Australia. We have a total of 22,000 employees, are completely separated from any other military organization and have taken our level of evolution to levels you can only imagine."

"Why?" O'Neill inquired. "Why if you've done all of that and known for so long would you tell us now?"

Daniel responded. "We're planning on bringing the other nations of our planet into the fold soon enough as well; we were waiting for the US to come clean first, but some of Phoenix's activities have come to a point where we can't simply co-exist without the other knowing of us anymore."

"What director Leigh and Chieftain Scott are trying to say," Harry decided to be blunt about it, "Is that we have four interstellar battleships of a class similar to a Goa'uld Ha'tak ready for launch and we aren't able to do that if you don't know about us."

"You have a working hyperdrive?" exclaimed Carter.

Harry inclined his head. "As we are speaking ten squadrons of five space-fighters each named Daggers are on standby should Earth be attacked. "

Simms rubbed his eyes. "How long did you say Phoenix Operations is active?"

"About three years."

"Area 51's been working on a spaceship for decades now and they're only now having a prototype for a space-fighter ready."

"About that," Daniel mentioned, "I would check twice before transforming a Death Glider into a space-fighters. Our Australian branch initially based themselves off of Goa'uld spaceships as well, but they abandoned that after a while. There's some kind of recall signal built in they couldn't get around."

"It is something the Goa'uld would do," stated Teal'c. "Harry Potter, it was mentioned you are a guardian; of what are you a guardian?"

"Only Mr Simms will know this," he answered the question. "But hidden throughout our world are thousands of witches and wizards. We are an evolution of the human race, the homo magica, that's been around for thousands of years. What we can do by merely focusing our magic through a piece of wood, is what others need advanced technology for.

"Magical society in general isn't friendly towards non-magical humans and their world. We live twice as long as regular humans, so change doesn't happen quickly, neither does our collective memory fade rapidly. Wizards and witches still think of the witch hunts when they think about the non-magical world."

"Fascinating," commented Jackson.

"When some of my discoveries became public knowledge, I was approached by Queen Elizabeth and her entourage and asked to assist the British government into setting up their own Astria Porta program. I answered the request and serve as the co-head of security of the base, protecting our headquarters with magic. It's one of the major reasons only people we want to know about Phoenix know."

From there the meeting continued in a presentation of what Phoenix had to offer and negotiations to bring the USA into the generation. Calls were made to their president, information was exchanged and a promise made to find a Guardian and Vice-Guardian for the Cheyenne Mountain Complex as well as for Area 51.

The treaty eventually agreed upon got the mysterious name of Zeus Treaty - at least it would be mysterious to people who hadn't a clue about their civilian-class spaceship. A slightly modified version of the treaty would later be used as base of the Jupiter Declaration , when the other major nations of Earth joined Phoenix Operations.

Five hours after Harry answered the question posed by Teal'c, it was time for the launch of the HMS Excalibur , the Sankopha , the Exodus and the Tanaka .

They watched from the windows in the middle of the ship, larger than the rest, how two spaceships flew off South Africa and another two left from the Australian desert. When the four battleships kept on moving forwards into space, the Zeus answered in stride by following them to the orbit of Jupiter.

"You know," said O'Neill, "those spaceships look awfully familiar. Like Star Wars Destroyer-familiar."

"It's not as large as in the movies," confessed Matthew, "But as the Indians say: don't waste a good spaceship-design if you have one already."

"They're larger than our plans for the X-303," noted Carter.

"The initial plans were to build even larger ships, motherships to remain in permanent orbit around the planet and house a lot of people in case of a doomsday scenario. We abandoned the idea when it became apparent how much time it would take to build even one of them."

Daniel continued. "The Destroyer -class of battleships will serve as the central command during battles. There aren't any definite plans for smaller battleships yet, but we're working on it. Your X-303 might fulfill that particular need of the Terran Space Force."

"How did you come up with your hyperdrive?" Carter questioned.

"Wizards and witches can manipulate the physical dimensions easily," Harry answered, "they have done so for thousands of years. One of the spells we use is called a Portkey. It's a charm that transforms any object into a method of transportation, making the destination pull the user through hyperspace at incredible speeds without using a lot of energy. Life support is automatically present on activation.

"Our scientists studied the procedure closely, made their conclusions and worked out a hyperspace engine, the Portdrive PD01. A lot of the disadvantages of Portkey travel are still present and we haven't found a way yet to exceed the basic speed of forty times the speed of light in hyperspace or to negate the time relativity factors."

"Time relativity factors?" Carter frowned. None of the spaceships SGC encountered said anything about time when it came to hyperspace travel.

"A six hundred miles journey by Portkey feels like you were underway for a minute," Harry answered, having taken an interest in the subject from the start. "Tests indicate that the same goes for the Portdrive though the ratio differs: a minute per 10 light years you pass in real space. To outsiders, they travel extremely fast, while to the personnel inside the spaceship, time passes extremely slow, aging them quicker than is normal. It's not ideal, but at least we have a means to take the fight to the enemy."

"Isn't there anything they're trying to do about it?"

"At the moment, we allow hyperspace travelers to go through the healing pods after a mission to undo some of the aging process," he explained, "In the long run, we're looking at applying an automatic stasis field after the first ten minutes in hyperspace that stops ten minutes before arrival. We're not abandoning the Portdrive, it's faster than anything else we can lay our hands on, it's relatively easy to construct and it doesn't use a lot of energy."

Hammond looked at Jackson. "Doctor Jackson, do you believe the Asgard would be willing to help us in this endeavor?"

"I don't know. They don't like to give away their technology. We can always ask them and see whether they are willing."

"Make it one of your next tasks."

Jackson nodded.

Nine months after the United States joined Phoenix Operations, a special meeting of the United Nations was arranged with representatives of each Phoenix branch country, the European Union, Russia, China and members of the United Nations itself.

Homeworld Security and Phoenix Operations officially became new organizations of the United Nations, with the other nations actively becoming participants. New branches were decided, China setting up three different bases, Russia two and the European Union setting up an extra base on the mainland - a research and training facility.

With the addition of Phoenix Nevada, the famed Area 51, Phoenix Siberia and Phoenix Yangtze, there were now five shipyards worldwide producing spaceships, which of course caused an increase in trade with different worlds to gather all of the material. The Exodus and HMS Excalibur took turns traveling to different solar systems to harvest the raw materials present there. Four more Destroyer -class ships were constructed, the other ships being produced was the eventual B-305, roughly the same appearance as the X-303 would have had, but with far more advanced technology on board.

The problems with the Portdrive remained, even after the Asgard consented to having a look at it - the Tau'ri hyperdrive wasn't anything they had ever encountered, but even their superior understanding of science couldn't do more than do what the Phoenix scientists could, speed up their ride and disperse the intense feeling of collectively being pulled towards something.

An automatic stasis field wasn't possible on a scale that high, instead the ships' personnel were assigned stasis pods and put into them for the major part of the journey. To keep an eye on the workings of the ship, a special position was created. That person got to lay in a special pod that woke him from stasis every week or whenever the systems encountered an error message.

Harry walked to the third floor of Adder Castle wearing only his undergarments and entered the Master's Provision, a room containing all of the material he used during his relic hunting days and various other trinkets. He regularly entered the place to make sure everything was in a working condition; this time however he was there to fit himself into his raider's 'uniform'.

The okay had finally been given by both the bigger ups of Phoenix and the Queen herself to explore the site that appeared out of the blue on his enchanted map of Britain. Located in between Exeter and Dartmoor in Cornwall, the site showed itself as having an area of five hundred square meters, one of the largest recordings Harry ever saw on the map.

He hadn't a clue why it only registered now, it was suspicious at the least. He wanted to check it out immediately; as it was, he wasn't a freelancer anymore. He needed permission from Phoenix Operations, time off, and permission of the Queen to explore her territory. The site showed as Unplottable and warded extensively, which was why it would only be him entering it.

A team of Unspeakables from the Ministry of Magic would come in handy, those guys knew their magic as well as Harry did, but it was too risky right now. Something was stirring in wizarding society worldwide. It had vague signs of a full-blown civil war on the horizon, but they weren't certain. Muggleborns and half-bloods were getting restless all over the world. It started with the people sent to Azkaban by the Ministry during Voldemort's brief coup and seemed to have spread from there.

In some ways it was fortunate Phoenix existed and united the Muggle governments to deal with the rising abnormal behaviors of their magical citizens, otherwise a magical world war could easily result in a world war on the Muggle side the likes of which hadn't even been portrayed in the disaster-movies of the seventies.

It was scary how one wizard could influence so many non-magical people like what happened during the Second World War, a war that only ended because Dumbledore 'imprisoned' Grindelwald. That old coot of a former headmaster was a piece of work, really. He hadn't gone to the German wizard to end his reign like modern magical history told you, the bearded man had left to do something about his sexual frustrations with his former lover. Only when the Russian wizards tried to breach the wards of Grindelwald's abode, did Dumbledore take the Elder Wand and bind the blond wizard.

There was a reason Eastern European wizards and witches joined Voldemort's organization and it certainly wasn't because Dumbledore was light and Voldemort dark, a naive idea at the best anyway.

A leather hat sat on a table next to a Muggle trench coat, a pair of jeans, cowboy boots, a pair of sunglasses and several satchels. Yes, he might look a bit cliché, that didn't stop the outfit from being the best he could imagine. When you're trying to enter a crypt when it was pouring, lightning and thunder striking eerily close to you, you'd wish you wore exactly those clothes. There didn't exactly exist a spell to keep rain from falling.

He dressed himself, placing his wand in the holster built in his right boot. The holster had a nifty trick that caused the wand to jump into his hand when he tapped the boot three times with his other boot.

He picked up several daggers and spikes from another table, putting them in various pockets. They came in handy when the mafia caught you or you couldn't leave the location and had to hunt for rabbits or their likes.

Fully equipped for the task, he descended to the dungeons for a final check of the men. As he walked into the Phoenix part of the base, some idiot decided to be funny and played the theme song from the Indiana Jones movies, causing every head in the room to turn to him.

"Looking hot, Harry," Maureen Kitten, an administrative Vice-Knight, called out.

Harry rolled his eyes upwards and ignored the giggles and wolf calls from the other Vice-Knights. Really, was this the organization defending Earth against aliens?

It didn't take long until he could really leave and Apparate to the top of Dartmoor, Apparating to the lower end of the hill in order to avoid having to hike all the way down.

Finding an Unplottable location wasn't easy, but it wasn't difficult either when you had a map to guide you somewhat. The entrance was covered up by almost a meter of earth, shrubberies and dried leaves growing from it. There were spells to trim shrubberies, to accelerate their growth and even to shape them into the most ridiculous forms like a duck or hedgehog. When it came down to removing it though, Harry had to fall back to his years of gardening at the Dursley's. With a dagger he cut through the growth of the plants, piling the remains next to him. With a couple of well cast reductos, the earth was scattered to all directions (even on his nice outfit), eventually causing a hole of several meters wide.

The 'entrance' strangely enough was a hi-tech looking piece of rock that on contact with the palm of his hand, transported him into a cave-like room.

"Greetings, I am Morose though you may know me better as Arthur Pendagron's wizard advisor Merlin, the founder of the organized magical world."

Harry glanced at the ghost-like appearance of a man his former headmaster liked to appear as, but failed utterly in comparison to what apparently was the real deal.

Morose continued his explanation. "If you have found this complex, then the time has come for a wizard or witch, depending on your gender, to learn several secrets of the way this universe works and who lives in it. To prove your worthiness as a warlock, it is up to you to breach the protections of the corridor behind you. If you fail, your mind will be wiped completely and you will return to the surface of this planet with none the wiser on who you are and what you were doing. If you succeed, a treasure and a wealth of knowledge will be given to you. Choose wisely and do not hesitate."

He turned around and walked to the mentioned corridor. It was long and dark, not a good combination. Because you shouldn't ignore the simple things in life, he moved his left feet forwards only for something to grab it and move him upside down.

"Levicorpus, great. Just great," he muttered. It figured the greasy dead bat of a potions professor wouldn't be the first to invent this. He reached out to take his wand, causing his hand to get stuck as well. Sighing, he started looking more closely at the beginning of the corridor. There wasn't much more he could do, hanging upside down with only one hand - not even the right one - free. A trigger or sensor had to be present. Before the Ancients went through the process of Ascension, they relied heavily on trinkets and gadgets to do what they wanted. He suspected this corridor wasn't any different.

"Stone, stone, stone, stone, mm... a shiny glimmery thing in the stone, is that it?"

He took a dagger and, careful to avoid the opening, carved a groove around the shiny thing, deepening it millimeter by millimeter. Eventually he reached a wire behind the thing and cut it in one go.

"Ugh, I think I hit my tail-bone," he said after he'd fallen down.

Twenty meters and six hours later, a bedraggled Harry Potter exited the corridor from hell, entering a wide and large underground facility, almost as large as the Blackpool base. The only thing in the room was a hexagon-shaped spaceship over fifty meter long and thirty meters wide.

"At least I'm getting something out of all of this," he said to himself. It was like the time he found that Al'Kesh in the Alps, only more impressive, because this would probably be an Ancient ship.

He walked around it, trying to find an entrance. Naturally it was on the other side than where he started watching. The interior was very... alien, but made for human-sized people.

There was a central 'hall' with a round table in the middle, throne-like chairs set around it. On the table lay several scrolls of parchments, a book and something he recognized as an Ancient knowledge repository - don't touch no matter what happens, Colonel/Vice-Chieftain O'Neill had experience with those things.

Was this the round table? He picked up the book, opening its cover. Written in Ancient. Too bad he didn't have his linguistic devices with him, they could translate Ancient these days.

He left the 'hall' and went to what he presumed was the front of the ship. In the bridge, Morose's ghost, hologram, whatever it was, appeared in front of him.

"Congratulations! You have found the interstellar spaceship Galahad . You have probably seen the conference chamber where you will find my journal, my notes and the enchanted device containing all you need to know to understand what is being explained in the journal and notes.

"The Galahad and the enchanted device are already modified to your magical DNA, as such only you who has proven himself worthy will have access to them. The only way to get outside the ship is with the knowledge contained in the enchanted repository."

The apparition disappeared, leaving Harry staring at an empty space.

"Bloody fantastic."

Since there was nothing to do about it, he returned to the conference chamber, contemplated on whether he really wanted to turn in an Ancient-talking freak. His options were limited of course, so he decided to take the risk.

A white glow surrounded him briefly, that was all he noticed before he fell unconscious to the ground.

The repository wasn't all that terrible, apparently made especially for magical humans and containing nothing more than the Ancient language and the instructions on how to fly the Galahad , a spaceship that apparently could shift to another dimension, so it could fly through solid matter. He'd give it to Phoenix Operations South Africa, Siberia, Yangtze, Australia or Nevada if it weren't for the fact that only a magical human could enter it and only he could operate it or even take it apart.

Morose's journal and notes were something he could donate though, they contained details about a separatist movement of Ascended beings that liked to lord it over the lesser planes of existence, had a grudge against the Ancients and probably would invade the Milky Way sooner rather than later. The plans on how to build a weapon to destroy them were quite prominent in the journal.

One of the scrolls was the codex adscensio, the rules and regulations of the Ascended. An essential text to better understand the behavior of the Ascended.

With the repository inside his mind, the object itself was worthless, so he would just leave it inside the Galahad , which he flew to a cave in the Scottish Highlands he discovered several years ago. He didn't really need it, but he had to place it somewhere.

Once that was done, he put the journal and notes in his satchel and Apparated to Ouroboros Warlocks , the only place Apparition was possible on his property. He was ready to report in, making sure, of course, to omit anything related to the Galahad and the repository. Phoenix worked heavily on a need to know basis, this wasn't any different.

The trumpets blazing a battle march woke him up in the middle of the night.

"Fuck," he cursed. Those trumpets only meant one thing: Earth was under full-scale attack. Considering who was strengthening his grip on the galaxy these days, that only meant one thing...

He rose and dressed in his uniform quickly, activating his communication link with the people doing their shift downstairs.

"Wycliffe, what's going on?"

"Over sixty Ha'taks are in our airspace, the Destroyers and B-305s are keeping them at bay for the moment. Anubis' mothership is above Antarctica. The Americans know more about what he's doing. It doesn't look good. The shields on his Ha'tak stop everything we've tried to take it down."

"Do you know anything about the status of Morose's weapon?"

"They're still working on it."

"Then there's no obvious way to off the bastard?"

"No."

"All right. Put the Astria Porta activities in lockdown, call in Su and the others." He steeled himself. "I'm going to finish this once and for all."

"What do you mean?"

"I destroyed one Dark Lord, I think I can handle another one."

Wycliffe was silent for a moment. "How are you going to get there?"

"Let's just say Morose left behind more than Phoenix' has at the moment."

"It's not like I can do anything to stop you," the other sighed. "Good luck, Harry."

He ran to the stables, jumped into a Hummer and drove off towards the exit of the property. Once he was out of the Apparition wards, he turned the car off and promptly Apparated to the cave in the Highlands. It had been two years since he'd been there, luckily the Galahad was untouched.

It took an hour to fly, at top speed and in the other dimension to avoid detection, to Antarctica. He'd taken the high orbit route, wanting to see for himself how bad it was. It was bad. None of their battleships had been destroyed yet, but the HMS Excalibur and Sankopha looked pretty roughed up. The Odyssey and Prometheus , the American Destroyer and B-305 respectively, were doing their best to ward off any assistance to Anubis' ship. Scattered all over the space were the Daggers and Spikes, the American space-fighter model, taking down hoards of Gliders and Al'Kesh.

The battle was far more intense than any science-fiction movie or series could portray.

He didn't simply leave the Galahad outside the Ha'tak, instead he flew straight into it, glimpsing Oma Desala opposing Anubis. He shook his head. The Ascended wouldn't be able to do anything substantial.

He made sure the exit of the ship came out in a corridor and shifted the Galahad out of its alternate dimension, causing a massive explosion. He left the city and Apparated to the place the partly Ascended Goa'uld and permanently Ascended Ancient were. His appearance caused them to cease their attacks momentarily, both of them surprised.

"Go back to your kind, Oma Desala," he warned. "This is an affair of the lower planes of existence."

"Who are you?" spat Anubis.

Harry grinned evilly at the thing. "They call me an Avenger. To you however, I'm your worst nightmare."

Anubis laughed at him. "You cannot harm me."

"Yeah well, I'm afraid your visa is expired." Having said that, Harry cast a Killing Curse at the other. It never hurt to start with the basics when facing the unknown.

Anubis jumped to the side to avoid the curse.

He kept on casting the Killing Curse, saying in the meantime: "You know, Avada Kedavra, I was having, Avada Kedavra , a nice dream, Avada Kedavra when I woke up, Avada Kedavra because you decided, goddamn it, will you stay put! Avada Kedavra !"

He focused momentarily, this game of cat and mouse had gone on long enough. Anubis wasn't even reacting. Time for the heavy guns, the ever-handy Extinguish-Your-Soul curse. " Exstinctor animus! " His arm moved in a horizontal arc. Nothing happened. "Right, you don't have a soul. Should've figured." Modifying his curse slightly, he hoped this would have any effect, otherwise he was toast: No doubt once he stopped sending deadly attacks at the other, some kind of Ancient / Asgard / Ascended mojo was going to come his way. " Exstinctor natura !"

An explosion of energy washed over him, extending outwards in a radius of five miles.

Harry breathed heavily. That was the most intense, shortest fight he'd ever participated in. "So that's how you kill an Ascended being."

A rumbling sound came from all over the ship.

"Crap," he whispered, "how do I get out of this thing?"


	3. The Legend Reborn

**The Astria Porta Project – Part Three : A Legend Reborn**

******Disclaimer** I don't own the Harry Potter franchise, nor the Stargate franchise. Other, rich, people do. I also apologize if several people in this story aren't portrayed with sufficient respect; I try, but I only have my imagination to base off.

* * *

One of the explosions rocketing Anubis' Ha'tak created an opening in the hull of the spaceship. Having just delivered the killing blow to the partly-Ascended Goa'uld, Harry ran towards that hole. It wouldn't take long until the smaller internal explosions caused a massive explosion. He knew the ship descended a lot in these last minutes, hopefully it was enough for his jump not be lethal.

Running at an average speed of 30 kilometers per hour, it didn't take long for him to step into nothing and fall down. He was halfway down the length of the ship when the power cores exploded, sending forth a blast wave that threw him up instead of down. Debris hit him from all sides, smoke and fire nearly suffocating him.

Then he started falling again. He had his wand in his hand, if his mind was clearer he would've remembered nearly a dozen spells that could help him. Unfortunately he just came out of an explosion and was crashing to the ground rapidly. By the time the word 'magic' even appeared in his thoughts, it was too late. In an unconscious gesture to avoid a headfirst smack, he moved his arms in front of him and pulled up his legs. Human ball or not, you didn't escape unscathed from that kind of ordeal.

He felt his wand spike his chest, his protective gear was as much damaged as his body, had a faint impression of incredible coldness as he went through two meters thick ice and knew no more.

In normal circumstances, a human remaining under the icecap of Antarctica wouldn't survive long. There were plenty explorers who experienced that on the other side of the planet. Humans simply weren't made to survive in such an environment. Magical people, an evolution of the human race, were far more flexible and would survive a bit longer. A magic user with a wand at their disposal wouldn't have any trouble at all, given the chance that they woke up and were able to move their hand.

A magic user whose phoenix wand core was in the process of merging with that person's body, well, that was a lucky one. He first got to clinically die for a couple of weeks while his body went through physical and metaphysical changes, then wake up with his body having most of the damage as it did when he first died.

The altered person then had the privilege of calling himself part-Phoenix, part-human with immortality as the ultimate gift. It wasn't that death didn't come knocking at his door every now and then, rather it was that he died, was denied entrance to heaven's gate and promptly sent back to the land of the living. A cursed immortality in other words.

"The secret is gone," whispered Su Li, looking at the assembled leaders of Phoenix Blackpool. "Harry's dead."

A grim silence greeted that statement. Instead of sinking into despair like she wanted to, Su steeled herself and focused on casting the most important charm the organization required. With pain in her heart, she intoned: " Fidelius! "

After going through the entire base's personnel and sending an encrypted message to the portal of the Phoenix network, she joined the other leaders of their base in the closed emergency meeting.

"Guardian Li," the loss of the 'Vice' prefix introduced bitter thoughts into her mind, "do you know anything about Harry's will?"

"I know where it's located... I can't believe he's gone."

"It was a possibility he was prepared for," murmured Matthew.

"What do we do about the funeral?" Daniel asked. "I'd suggest a private funeral, but he was a public figure, an icon even."

Lloyd Baker offered his opinion. "The Queen and her consort will want to attend."

"Wizards and witches will come too," said Su.

"Public funeral it is," decided Daniel. "This is going to take a lot of organization. He's about as popular as Princess Diana was."

"We'll wait a couple of weeks so we can try and retrieve his body," Matthew spoke. "Until that time we need stay alert. Anubis might be gone, but there are enough bad guys out there."

Nods affirmed that thought. A great man might be gone, it wasn't the end of the world, far from it.

Dobby let the pan he was cleaning drop to the floor. The Great Harry Potter Sir was in trouble! A determined expression on his face, Dobby disappeared from Great Britain, digging several minutes until he noticed his limbs growing really cold, the wind stinging his eyes.

A particular strong wind grabbed him, dragging him miles further and dumping him in the Ross Sea. Frostbite has a very good possibility of killing human. A house-elf with only a flimsy little uniform died with absolute certainty seconds after the cold set in.

Kreacher looked up from dusting the dragon's head in his master's living room, his master was dying! Kreacher had to do something, save his master. He didn't want to spend another dozen years all alone.

Concentrating hard on his master's whereabouts, Kreacher popped straight onto an Antarctic ice mass. He searched everywhere, going even as far as digging into the Earth. Unfortunately he didn't think to look up or he would have seen the five meter long chunk of metal heading his way, killing him without mercy.

He woke to the sensation of extremely cold water, too cold to shiver or even move an inch. His mouth remained shut, breathing apparently was something he could do without as long as he didn't overexert himself.

From the looks of it, his clothes were ruined. Undoubtedly all of his electronic equipment was as well. He saw the wood of his wand sticking out of him. How much time had passed?

He remained like that, his eyes observing his surroundings, his body stiff and unmoving. Why he wasn't dead, he hadn't the faintest. He must have been at some point, otherwise he'd still remember where his Phoenix base was or find the link to Kreacher. Had he Ascended, done something he shouldn't have and kicked out? No, that didn't sound right. He wasn't someone who'd accept the offer of Ascension, far too many rules involved with that.

According to the reports on Daniel Jackson, if you Deascended your memory was wiped completely and he remembered all too vividly the battle with Anubis, his time hunting artifacts, the assassination of Voldemort. A mystery, that was what it was.

Lying beneath a mass of ice, he resented his survival. Su Li obviously had already assumed the Guardian position back home; his job as vice-director of the museum probably was filled in as well. Adder Castle should be in use by Phoenix Operations by now, it was how he wrote it all down in his will after all. Romilda and Su wouldn't have much trouble keeping Ouroboros Warlocks open either. Both of them had enough experience.

It was good that all of those things didn't require a lot of paperwork to be put in place. He didn't want his death to inconvenience people. Unfortunately he wasn't quite dead, was he? His entire life was over...

Nonetheless, Phoenix Operations was a huge organization, undoubtedly there were things he could do with his master degrees and experience. What field was he interested in though? He had master degrees in medieval history, linguistics, aerodynamics and computer science. One of the benefits of working for an international space organization. Aside those, he also had his Phoenix degrees, educations you could only get at the Blue Mountain facility. There were several of those: the Guardian certificate, the offensive and defensive weaponry license, the Portdrive-assembler degree, the Avalon specialist degree, ...

That was if he ever got back to the real world. For all he knew he was immobile for life and stuck beneath Antarctica for eternity.

After a long time of doing nothing, Harry started the long process of breaking free from the layer of ice covering his body. It began with one finger and ended with his shoulders. His legs could wait. Once that was done he started swimming, hoping for an open spot or a place where the ice wasn't so thick.

After several miles, he was in luck. One of the pieces of Anubis' Ha'tak had pierced the ice, the new layer was only several centimeters thick. Once he hoisted himself out of the water, he laid still for a long time. Eventually the strong wind made him pull out his wand. To his surprise the minute the wood left his chest, all of the wounds started healing rapidly. Five minutes later, it was as if nothing had been wrong in the first place. Except for his legs who didn't do anything he wanted them to do.

"Guess I'll have to do without," muttered he. The minute his mouth opened, his lungs started working again, furiously even. "Got to be more careful with that."

"What are you doing, Major?" General Jack O'Neill said to Major John Sheppard, the helicopter pilot transporting him to the Ancient Outpost on Antarctica.

"There's somebody over there," the Major replied.

O'Neill glanced at the direction his pilot nodded. Sure enough, there was someone laying several hundreds of meters removed from them. "Okay, let's go and have a look at who we're dealing with."

The helicopter was barely turned off when someone in the Outpost warned them that someone activated the drone weapon system of the facility.

They rushed out of their vehicle to the unknown man.

"That's Potter," exclaimed O'Neill once they turned him over.

"You know him?" asked Sheppard as he checked the man. "He's dead."

"He's been dead for the past three months," said O'Neill. "I wonder how he ended up in here? No matter, can you help me carry him to the heli?"

"I got it," the Major said. He was hovering above Harry Potter, when the supposedly dead man latched onto him, taking in deep breaths. Sheppard pushed the man off of him. "What the hell?"

Harry coughed repeatedly.

"You're alive?" wondered O'Neill, pinching his arm to check whether he was dreaming or not.

"Can't die," said Harry with a scratchy voice. "Well, I die, but I always come back. Happened thirty times so far."

"That's creepy," concluded O'Neill.

Sheppard looked confused. "What do you mean you can't die?"

"Don't know why, woke up beneath the ice, swam out of it. Didn't die of the cold, didn't have to breathe... Haven't eaten since the night before Anubis. I still live." At that exact moment his stomach growled loudly. He sighed. "Now I'll have to eat."

O'Neill got back to business, the inquisition could wait until later. "Let's get you to the Outpost, there's a medical staff in that place. Can you walk?"

"Got hit with debris, haven't been able to move my legs since then."

Sheppard's eyebrows rose. "You crawled your way to here?"

His nod was enough of an answer. The two Americans picked up the Brit and placed him in the cargo space of the helicopter.

"Dr Weir, this is General O'Neill. Is that weapon system deactivated?"

"It is."

"Good. Have your medical personnel ready, we're bringing in Harry Potter. He's alive."

"Good heavens! After all this time?"

"Stranger things have happened. O'Neill over and out."

"You know, General, this is a very weird place," stated Sheppard.

"You'll know soon enough how weird of a place it really is."

Harry looked at the Chinese doctor. "These replacements work in the same way as my legs?"

It had been a month since he was found by the Americans and transported to one of the Chinese branches where they worked on prostheses and the likes. The damage done to his spine was healed by going through the sarcophagi, but his legs were officially and completely destroyed. As a gesture of thanks and partly because they needed someone to experiment upon, he was the first human to have these prostheses. Made out of naquadah and housing two compartments, a quantum computer and a shielding device, Harry personally thought it to be a bit over the top. Who wanted storage rooms in his biceps anyway?

The doctor bowed briefly.

News of his survival was only limited to Phoenix Operations and Homeworld Security; his funeral apparently rivaled that of the deceased Princess Diana and there wasn't an easy way to explain his presence to the public. It'd taken a personal visit from Australia's Vice-Guardian, an aboriginal, for the organization itself to have a clearer picture on how he survived.

Fawkes' feather merged with his body and magical core, giving him the common abilities of phoenixes like immortality and a good singing voice, while also transforming his entire self into one giant magical focus. Like with staffs, it gave him an incredible advantage in performing rituals and grotesque magic, but it meant shit when it came down to the useful charms like creating a Portkey, levitating a feather or casting a bone-shattering curse.

The Fidelius and all related wards luckily fell into the section of rituals, combining that with the limited amount of people knowing of his existence, he was a perfect candidate to join the Atlantis expedition. They were due to depart in two weeks, hopefully by then he wouldn't have any problems walking around.

He was promoted for his part in Anubis' downfall, going from Guardian to Grandmaster. As a Grandmaster he was an odd sort of combination of a Vice-Chieftain and a Guardian. In essence it was a more fitting name for what he was; he transcended the job description of a Guardian.

That the title was given to him by the Chieftain and Guardian Council helped of course.

He carefully tested 'his legs'. They reacted like he wanted; he just didn't feel anything. They would never tire, nor would he be able to feel cold or warmth again from his middle downwards. He told the doctor as much, who smiled excitedly, bowed repeatedly and confirmed that that was the purpose.

"These are the remote access points to your computer." The man gave him two wrist devices: pliable touch screens of the finest quality, manufactured in Japan. "This is your auditive input device." Harry was given an earplug with a microphone attached. "The computer can be operated through that as well."

He moved his legs to the side and shifted his weight. Then he stood up. It was an incredible weird sensation he couldn't find the right words for. When he was used to the feeling, he walked. There was no flaw in his movement, absolutely nothing that said his legs weren't organic. That, perhaps more than anything else, was the weirdest about it all.

"Good luck in Atlantis," Wycliffe saw him out of the Blackpool branch. Coming back to the place with no real position in it was slightly uncomfortable, especially because he knew the majority of the people were present at his funeral. Su Li had taken Romilda Vane under her wings, she was doing well enough by the looks of it. Still he was kind of glad he wouldn't constantly be here anymore. Three months of Antarctica and one month of China did that to a man.

The expedition would leave through the Stargate in America rather than Britain; it was decided that Blackpool would focus on setting up trade with other worlds and establishing a tentative galactic institute where worlds and races could settle their differences peacefully, while the Cheyenne Mountain Complex would focus on the defense of Earth and going after the big guns and projects.

Following Zeus five other civilian spacecrafts were constructed to facilitate transport of people and material between branches, especially now that the Terran Space Force was developing a two mile wide space station in orbit around Mars. When it was finished it was going to be the TSF's headquarters. Colonization of an abandoned planet out of Goa'uld reach also was an activity indicating a change in perspective of the organization concerning offworld activity.

Shiva would pick the European participants up at Heathrow and fly them to the Air Force Academy in Colorado. There buses would transport everybody to Phoenix Cheyenne, more commonly known as Stargate Command. The Americans while adopting enough of the international protocols liked to keep their own set of rules, like the usage of USAF ranks for their employees. Separating SGC from the USAF itself had taken a while as well, but it was one of most important rules of Phoenix Operations: no national military was allowed direct involvement. While the USA didn't necessarily do anything wrong, it was a preventive strike at any foolish African or Arabic government wanting more control or use machines of a more alien nature for their own struggles.

"Potter, it's good to see you," O'Neill greeted. "Heard you got a new pair of legs?"

"And they're incredibly weird, I tell you," Harry answered. "Some Chinese bloke decided that prostheses were as good as any place to hide your loot."

At the General's inquiring look, Harry unzipped the 'pocket' on his pants, tapped something on his PWD, pliable wrist display. The compartment in his right biceps opened. O'Neill crouched and stared into it.

"They gave you a hole in your legs?" he wondered. "What did you put in it? I can't see it."

"A Disintegrator gun." He took it in his hands. "Ever used one of these?"

"I'm more a Zat gun kind of guy."

"Too bad." He put the gun back where it belonged, closed the compartment and zipped the pocket back in place.

"Ready to face the big unknown?"

"You know you shouldn't phrase it like that. Freya used that sentence a lot when we were about to... you know."

"You and Freya, as in Tok'ra Anise/Freya?" exclaimed O'Neill.

Harry shrugged. "Had a fling with her when she tried to help us build the Ori weapon."

"Really? I wouldn't have thought you and her, you know. Wow. You surprised me with that one."

"A guy's gotta have a social life even if it involves an alien."

"Too right. You know she had a thing for me at one point?"

"She told me. Then she told me she found me more attractive."

"You're lying." O'Neill stated. "I can see it in your eyes! She said no such thing, did she? Come on, nobody can be more attractive than me!"

Harry patted the man's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Jack, but... I don't know how to say it, but you're getting a bit older and well... Young blond things with silicone breasts might dig that; intelligent ladies like Freya don't."

"Young blond things with silicone breasts, eh?" O'Neill mused. "Maybe I'll have to look into that. Without the isolation material though, don't really like large bumpers."

"General!" Carter smacked her superior with a newspaper. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. It wasn't my intention."

Laughing loudly, Harry walked out of the control room. By the time he was in the gate room, his face took an a more serious expression.

"Everything okay?" Elizabeth Weir asked him.

"No problems," he responded. The expedition as it was consisted for the most part out of personnel from the western part of the world. Africa was still bringing its continent to a more advanced level of evolution, while the other nations focused on different projects at the moment. Once the space station and the next generation of motherships were finished, the Atlantis mission would receive more international collaboration... Should the mission be a success of course.

"I've already briefed the Europeans about what we're going to do once we step through the gate, how the command structure works and given them a chance to remain behind."

"I'm going to give a speech before we leave, I'll offer the same option to them as well."

"Colonel Sumner," Harry greeted the man. "We haven't met yet. I'm Harry Potter."

"Grandmaster Potter," Sumner inclined his head, "it's a pleasure to meet you. I understand you are on an equal footing with me concerning authority?"

He nodded. "It's a custom at all of the Phoenix bases to have two people in charge of security and the likes. This expedition is slightly different, since we only have scientists, military men and medical staff with us. For the moment I'm only along for the ride, so to speak. We'll clear out duties and the likes once we're settled in, if we succeed of course."

"I have no problems with that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to see to my men."

Harry moved onto the next person he saw, John Sheppard. "How do you do, Major?"

"Amused for the most part." Sheppard looked at Harry's legs. "Your legs are fine now?"

"Prostheses of the 21st century." He patted them. "Work as well as any other pair of legs and even have a computer in them."

"A computer? Why would you need that for?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "To hook my toes up with the Internet?"

The Major shook his head.

"All military personnel, report to the gate room," he spoke through his radio. The downside of working with so many Americans was that they used different terms for anything to do with the Astria Porta, like the embarkation room being the gate room, an Astria Porta a Stargate, and so on. It took a while to get used to the lingo, but he'd done harder linguistic labor before. Like the course teaching Ancient given in Jamaica with an option to learn it digitally through the Phoenix Network, their version of the Internet.

"Listen up, people. I know we aren't familiar yet, but that's okay because we're going to have all the time of the world to do that. Colonel Sumner is as you all know missing. The survivors of his team are looking into setting up a rescue attempt. In the meantime, I want you to focus on your tasks. We have a duty to the people here, both the Athosians and our people. Who here has the highest rank that isn't part of the offworld team?"

A man stepped forward. "Sergeant Bates, sir."

"I'm placing you as temporary head of security while I start securing this base with more drastic means. I want you to oversee the guards, find a way to secure this tower from the rest of the city and keep an eye on any stray Athosians."

"Understood, sir." Bates looked like he wanted to ask something, but didn't dare to. Harry mentally snorted, military protocol.

"Permission to speak, Sergeant. If anybody has any worries or is unsure how to perform their tasks, feel free to ask me. I have experience with this kind of work."

"What drastic means are you thinking about using, sir?"

"That's a good question. First of all you are aware of my abilities?" At their nods, he continued. "I'm going to make this city unplottable. In simpler terms: I'm going to shift Atlantis to another dimension which will allow the city to be visible only when you're right in front of it and know it's there. We've done a bit of research back on Earth and it's been proven that when you make an island unplottable, not even the Asgard sensors can detect its presence.

"You've heard the reports about these Wraiths. If they defeated the Ancients ten thousand years ago by laying siege on this city with their spaceships like we believe, we can avoid at least that by what I'm planning to do."

The marines must have liked what they heard, their expressions became just a little less tense.

"How long will it take until you've made the city... unplottable?" informed Bates.

"One hour, two hours maximum. It's a lot of ground to hide."

One of the other marines coughed. "Where will you do whatever it is you have to do, sir?"

"On top of this tower," answered Harry. "I have to be in the center of the property and it'll be easier when I see everything spread out in front of me."

"I'll have someone guarding you, sir," promised Bates.

"All right. Until the Colonel returns and a better command structure is established, that's all. Dismissed."

"Doctor Weir, do you mind if I start this meeting?" inquired Harry. Assembled in the room were Major Sheppard, Sergeant Bates, Doctor McKay, Doctor Becket, Doctor Weir and himself.

"By all means, you have the most experience with these kind of things," answered Weir.

"Thank you," he inclined his head. Glancing at all of the people present, he began. "It's been a couple of chaotic days for all of us, so I'm not going to beat around the bush too much. It's time we bring some order into this city."

"After careful consideration, Grandmaster Potter and I have decided to split the military contingent into two: Major John Sheppard will head all of the Stargate teams, while Sergeant William Bates will lead the security force of Atlantis. Sergeant Bates will be assisted in this endeavor by Grandmaster Potter. As far as authority goes, both leaders will be on an equal footing, despite the difference in ranks," continued Weir. "Second-in-commands are preferably of a different team than your own."

Harry took over: "Like on every base, Dr Becket as Head Medical Officer can place this city in quarantine if it's necessary. Dr Becket, it's up to you to appoint a second-in-command. Dr McKay, the same goes for you as Head Scientific Advisor. How you set up your departments is completely up to you though I suggest you keep it logical and easy to maintain."

"Does anybody have any questions so far?" asked Weir.

McKay raised his hand. "Say, er, do we get those fancy titles too? I always fancied myself a lord, you see."

Weir replied: "The Phoenix ranking system isn't required, but it is allowed."

"So I'm Lord McKay? Cool."

Weir ignored the comment. "Grandmaster Potter is now going to explain all that he's done already and is planning to do to protect this city."

"None of you will have noticed it yet, but I shifted Atlantis to another dimension three days ago."

"Shifted to another dimension?"Sheppard asked, confused.

"It means that the minute you step, fly I mean, outside the confines of the city, Atlantis will disappear from sight. Since we're in the middle of an ocean, nothing will hint at our presence. Only if you know the city is there and you're right in front of it, will the city reappear to you. At the moment it's our only protection against warfare from space."

Sergeant Bates offered his opinion: "I can confirm that. Some of my men flew outside in a Puddle Jumper, the city did disappear the minute they were outside the city."

"I've got several things I can do next, but it depends on what is decided here. There is a ward, the Poseidon ward, that should enable us to submerge the city again - it has some of the properties of the shield. I'm also looking into creating an energy field you might say that absorbs sunlight - like one giant solar cell - and redirects the collected energy into one of the ZPMs. It's nothing definite yet, but I believe I can do that."

"Recharge the ZPM?" McKay murmured, obviously thinking.

"If you install this Poseidon ward, do we have to submerge the city?" questioned Weir.

"Let me check that." He opened the compartment of his left leg.

"Bloody hell, Harry," Becket exclaimed. "Ye didna tell me you had a hole in yer leg."

"The Chinese," he explained. He searched the compartment, pulling out a P90, ten ammo cartridges, an Avalon Aqua computer, a tent, a crossbow, several blocks of C4, a spare uniform, a kimono, a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica, a collection of screwdrivers and finally his Encyclopedia Magica. By the time he got it, everybody in the room was staring at him with wide eyes.

"That's disturbing," concluded Sheppard eventually.

"Like Mao Ching told me: a guy's got to have some spares." He leafed through his magical encyclopedia, eventually finding what he needed. "Here it is. Poseidon ward. Takes ten days to complete, invented by some Greek fossil, used to hide the wizarding version of Atlantis near Greece... Aha!" He looked at his superior. "The city doesn't need to be underwater." He glanced at all the material laying in front of him. He sighed. "Now I have to put it all back."

McKay looked at all of the objects. "That goes in there." He gestured at the compartment. "All of it?"

"There's more in there, I think. I haven't checked exactly." He smiled wryly. "Present from the wizards and witches working for Phoenix. They did it before I could even object and I thought 'might as well use it'."

"How does that? I mean, that's physically impossible!"

"A pocket in subspace with the ability to stretch endlessly."

"Amazing. Maybe I can replicate the process..." McKay fell back into scientific mumbo jumbo nobody really understood.

The others apparently decided that 'pocket in subspace' sufficed as an explanation, as they were getting back to the original topic.

"You have my permission to perform this Poseidon ward," stated Weir. "And see whether you can do this solar energy thing as well."

"All right. Next subject: secrecy," announced Harry. "Our brief experience with the Athosian people so far has taught us that there is one fierce enemy out there, that the city of Atlantis and the Ancients have an even more mythical meaning as it has on Earth. The Wraith apparently don't like this city and would like to have it destroyed as soon as possible. We're at a crossroads here about what we're going to do about that."

Aside Weir, nobody seemed to really understand what he was talking about exactly. The commander of the expedition decided to expand on Harry's introduction. "What the Grandmaster is trying to say is that we are faced with a relatively unknown enemy in a galaxy we've only just entered. We need to agree upon a course of action that accounts for our current limitations. We can't fight an all-out war, we don't want to catch even more attention than we already will, our supplies are limited."

Thus the discussion began. In the end it was agreed upon that the people going off world would say they came from Phoenix rather than Atlantis, that their dealings with foreigners were going to be tentative at the least, kept an eye on at the most. The people from Athos were a wonderful source of information, but their culture wasn't that advanced - their perspective limited.

"McKay, let me handle this," commanded Harry. "You don't know whether that shield device will hold long enough before the entity kills you."

"You're sure you want to do this?" McKay asked in one of his heroic moments.

"I've died before. It's not the end."

"All right then. Have fun!"

He rolled his eyes. That man had an ego the size of Jupiter and the courage of a cat. He walked to the center of the room, the cart with the power generator on it in front of him. It was a curious sensation, knowing you were probably going to die... again.

They established a connection, he activated the generator. The entity feeding off energy discovered the new food source quickly; it didn't take long for it to fill the entire room, obscuring his view. Strangely so, the shocks he felt were rather weak, probably his enhanced healing.

Then the entity did something it wasn't supposed to. It turned its attention from the power generator to him. It felt like it was caressing him and... feeling him up? What the hell?

The observers in the conference room saw the energy mass got denser, focusing completely on their expedition member.

"I don't understand, what's it doing?" asked McKay.

"How should I know? You're the expert," answered Sheppard.

Harry couldn't help it, the jolts and tingles teasing him, the caressing and feeling up. It had been months if not years since he last was intimate with someone, it was only natural his body responded the way it did.

His semen mixed with the energy, going into an accelerated and twisted meiosis, eventually becoming a fetus growing into a baby.

"Is the energy getting lighter?" wondered Weir.

Teyla confirmed her suspicion. "It is and is that a child?"

"According to this, all of the energy is going into whatever is growing in there."

They witnessed their Grandmaster looking at the infant boy, reaching out his hands. The energy completely disappeared. As if that wasn't the most bizarre thing they had seen so far, the toddler started to glow white.

"My god," Weir uttered. "He's Ascending!"

Sure enough soon the boy wasn't corporeal anymore, but the pure energy of an Ascended being. It laid its hand on his father's cheek before rising into the air and disappearing from sight.

They made their way from the conference room to the gate room, where they heard their Grandmaster muttering: "Why don't you go to Atlantis, they said, it'd do you good. Yeah, why not. Jesus, what kind of freak galaxy is this place? Never thought I'd ever have children though... Bit of a pity if they'd all Ascend immediately after birth. Damn I feel violated."

That was followed by him falling forwards, not rising from the ground.

"I better check up on him," offered Becket. He checked for a pulse and found none. "He's dead. There's nothing I can do for him anymore."

"Just wait and see," commented Sheppard.

Harry breathed deeply, clutching at Becket's uniform. "Goddamn that was embarrassing."

Teyla cast a curious glance at the rather abnormal man. "Where did that child come from?"

He blushed. "That er... thing... mated with me? It's all very weird, but the kid was my son I suppose. I'm not sure. It could just as well have been some kind of shortcut to Ascension. Really what kind of things did these Ancients keep around here?"

Nobody really knew how to respond to the whole situation. Finally, Weir made an attempt. "I'm sure you would have been a good father."

He stood up, steadying himself to adapt to the quick change in balance. "Apparently I'm a fantastic father... I don't know any other men having their children Ascend. In the future though, McKay, you can be the hero."

McKay's horrified expression was hilarious. "I don't want any kids!"

"Yeah, I don't think any kids with you as their father would ever be capable of Ascension," noted Harry, "they'd be too traumatized by their childhood."

With that comment, the tension was broken and the incident just another example of how life was so much simpler before the reinvention of the Stargate.

"All security personnel, switch your radio to channel sierra-foxtrot-thirteen followed by your passwords." He hadn't seen the purpose of his built-in quantum computer at first, but after several weeks of being second-in-command to Elizabeth Weir, he wouldn't be able to live without it. He kept a constant file of every expedition member on it, updating it almost daily. The voice recognition software and access to the radio communications network was a blessing as well, it enabled him to set up certain channels and secure them completely from unauthorized listeners.

When everybody was keyed in, he addressed them. "I know you're all antsy about the recent confrontations with the Wraith offworld. The possibility of a spy is realistic, I'm well aware of that. But you guys have to be more discreet with your suspicion. If there really is a spy in our midst, this is not the way to go about it."

"Understood sir," affirmed Bates. "Can't you do anything about it?"

"We first have to rule out all of the other possibilities. If someone actually is reporting our next destinations, they have to find out about them somehow. Smithson, McPherson, you're on duty in the gate room right now, aren't you?"

"Affirmative, sir," came Smithson's reply.

"You've been through tactical ops training?"

"Yes, sir."

"Blend into the background, make yourself invisible to the casual eye and report anything abnormal happening. The rest of you, be extra cautious, but don't go barging in people's personal chambers and the likes. There are enough hooks and nooks in this place to find a position to observe your surroundings better. I'm on the case, so back to work people."

All but Bates signed off. "Sir?"

"Yes, Sergeant?"

"The evidence points to the Athosian on Sheppard's team. They're the ones always running into the Wraith."

"I know." He paused. "There's a group of spells wizards and witches use to tag people; we've got an entire satellite network back on Earth capable of tracking an individual. We just don't know what the Wraith are capable of. This could be something like that, it could be an actual spy. We don't know for sure and we can't make too much assumptions."

"Understood, sir."

"I'm going to have a chat with Teyla."

"Thank you, sir." A relieved Bates ended the call.

He snorted. "Trust the immortal guy to save the day. I'm going to regret leaving Blackpool one day."

"Say the gents on Earth hello for me, will you?" Harry saw the other leaders off the expedition off. They'd found a planet with some kind of energy mist that equaled the power of a ZPM. They'd taken the control crystal of the Atlantis DHD, Dial-Home-Device, with them and left nearly all of the second-in-commands behind to lead the expedition.

"You could have gone with them," Teyla said from behind him.

Harry glanced at the woman. "I wouldn't know what to do there."

She looked back, curious.

"I destroyed a very powerful enemy several months before we came to Atlantis." He motioned for her to follow him. "I jumped out of his exploding spaceship to survive; the only problem was that it was on the south pole of our planet, one of the coldest places you'll ever encounter. I fell through two meters of ice and died for the first time." They descended two levels and went outside on one of the pier's balconies. "I couldn't use my legs and I ended up crawling for three months to a landscape of snow and ice. I died over thirty times. Sheppard and O'Neill, one of his superiors, eventually found me. They gave me a new pair of legs, but... My entire life was over."

"So they offered you a position on your people's expedition?"

He nodded. "I had nothing to lose."

"Don't you miss your home world sometimes?"

"I wonder about the people I've worked with, think about how things used to be, but that doesn't get me anywhere. I think you understand the feeling."

"My people are grateful that at least some of us survived the recent culling."

"I'll see what I can do to protect the settlement on the mainland."

She inclined her head in thanks. He looked across the ocean.

"You know there probably will come a day when I'll be in command of this city. I have no intention of leaving this galaxy, I found a new purpose. The others, they'll come and they'll go, but I'll be wandering these halls long after they're gone." At her frown, he added. "That's not a cause to doubt their sincerity, absolutely not. They're a devoted group of people."

"But circumstances might arise that force their hand?"

He nodded. "Be it death or a decision made back on Earth."

"Do you not listen to the decisions made on Earth?"

"Yes, but that won't stop me from staying behind should they ask that of me. Weird conception or not, Ascended or not, I've got a son to look after now. I can't do that from another galaxy."

"Should it ever come to that, you are welcome to join my people."

"They have no problems with you spending nearly all of your time with us?"

She weighed her words. "They understand that you need a guide to this galaxy."

"Fancy a cup of tea?"

"You have tea on your world? I thought you only had that awful coffee?"

"My country is renown for its tea," he said with a smile. "We have a custom of drinking it at a specific hour each afternoon."

"Interesting."

"There's a huge storm coming straight for Atlantis," McKay rushed in Harry's office. He'd been busy updating his personnel database. "And it's heading for the settlement first."

"Can the city survive this storm?"

"Not if we remain on the surface."

"Dr Weir decided on a course of action yet?"

"She's ordered the evacuation of the Athosian settlement to the city."

"I can get the city submerged in a time-span of ten minutes. How long do we have until the storm reaches us?"

"Twelve hours."

"And the mainland?"

"Three, maybe four hours?"

"All right. As soon as the Athosians are in the city I'll start the submersion procedure."

"You're sure you can do this?"

"I managed to guide solar energy into the ZPMs, didn't I?"

McKay reluctantly nodded. Harry rose and walked out of his office, the scientist following him. As they neared the operations center, they saw an incoming wormhole arriving.

"It's Marcel Beauvoir's IDC."

"Lower the shield," ordered Weir.

A bleeding Beauvoir entered ran through, followed by an even more bleeding Cadet Everard. "Raise the shield!" shouted the latter. "It's the Genii, they overheard our conversation earlier, killed Sheffield and took Bauer with them."

He activated his comm link. "Sergeant Bates, how's the evacuation going?"

"Lieutenant Ford, Teyla and Doctor Becket stayed behind. They're waiting for an Athosian hunting party. ETA half an hour."

"Step on it, we've got a gamma-tango six situation on our hands. Sheffield's dead, Bauer's abducted."

He ignored the curse words from the other side of the channel. "What's our strategy?"

"Sniper watching the gate, the room shielded off, our men behind them fully armed, medical team on standby. We won't have any other choice than to accept his IDC. Bauer won't mind if he's the only one coming through; if he's accompanied by the Genii I don't want to give them any opportunity of seizing control."

"Roger that, sir."

He changed the channel to that of the stray Puddle Jumper. "Lieutenant Ford, this is Grandmaster Potter."

"I hear you, sir."

"The Genii abducted Bauer after they heard a huge storm is going to tear apart our base. I'm going to submerge the city as soon as the others arrive, which should be within half an hour. You're going to have to sit out the storm underwater."

"I understand, sir. Did anyone got hurt?"

"Sheffield is dead, Beauvoir and Everard wounded, they're being treated as we speak."

"We'll keep in touch, sir."

"Same goes for us. Good luck, Sergeant."

"Grandmaster."

Elizabeth joined them. "You've got the situation dealt with smoothly."

"I've been doing this since my nineteenth, Elizabeth, one should hope they learn something after so many years."

"Can we watch you while you lower the city into the water?"

"As long as you don't interrupt me."

McKay clapped his hands in anticipation.

"Sheppard! You know how to use a sniper?" he continued.

The Major came over to them. "I had the pleasure of using them a couple of times, yes."

"We're going to ambush anyone that comes through the Stargate with Bauer's IDC. Sheffield was one of yours, so I'm thinking you might want some retribution."

"I wouldn't mind that," the Major said. "You've got one with you in that thing in your leg?"

He checked the database on his PWD... Another thing those quantum computers were good for, they worked alongside magic just fine. "I have a water...bazooka?"

"Hm. No sniper rifle then? I'll be right back."

Some of the Athosians and several members of the expedition were observing their focused Grandmaster, his arms spread wide, energy swirling around his entire body. It was an impressive display of magic, the likes of which only several men of the security component had seen.

The wind was rough, rain already falling down and the dark clouds of the storm threatening on the horizon. Rodney McKay couldn't help it, he sneezed. The brief surprise made Harry move slightly, causing the whole city to jump twenty meters, everybody to fall down and then experience a second of floating as the ground beneath their disappeared. Then they crashed.

"Thanks, McKay," Harry called out, "now I have to start again."

The scientist shrunk into himself at all the angry looks he received. "Sorry."

Soon enough they noticed the water of the ocean rising gradually, a dome not unlike that of the shield holding back the water. Centimeter by centimeter, meter by meter, Atlantis returned to the position it had held for over ten thousand of years.

"The city is submerged," Harry told the others. "We're safe from the storm." He walked back to them. "Say, Zelenka, I was wondering. The Ancients had to make their ZPMs somewhere, as far as we know, the Ancients just left this galaxy through the Stargate. There has to be something about a place like that in their archives."

"I'll look into it. Even if we did find a ZPM production lab, I'm not sure whether we could actually make a ZPM. The science involved is way beyond our current understanding."

He shrugged. "We're a versatile race. Put a Canadian, an Australian, an Indian, a Chinese and a European in the research team and we'll have as much ZPMs as we want to in no time."

Zelenka shifted his glasses slightly. "That's a very optimistic point of view."

"It's reality, just look at the latest Portdrive, or the space station Phoenix is constructing."

"You really think the Ancients had those facilities?" inquired Elizabeth. "We've been looking all over the galaxy and barely found any."

"They Ancients were here for what? Millions of years. You're not telling me they only used the ZPMs they brought from the Milky Way."

"Would they really leave that kind of place out in the open?" argued she.

Harry walked inside. "Then it has to be somewhere in Atlantis."

Zelenka looked at McKay. "He might be on to something."

He was walking through the corridors of the city that night on his regular night patrol; one of the (dis)advantages of being immortal was that sleep no longer was required of his body.

Sheppard had brought back a supposedly high priestess named Chaya Sar in the hopes of setting up a treaty of sorts that includes accepting refugees in exchange for technological advancements. He knew McKay had his doubts. Harry didn't doubt, his senses told him what she really was: an Ascended being.

He let the mortals to their illusion, it would shatter soon enough. Morose's journal contained a firm outline of the rules and punishments the Ascended had; as he found it, he was the only one of the expedition to have read it. Even Elizabeth hadn't been a part of Phoenix Operations long enough to know about that.

With a gait in his steps, he softly sung Leonard Cohen's 'Take This Waltz'.

This waltz this waltz this waltz

With its very own breathe

Of brandy and death

Dragging its tail in the sea

It was one of his favorite songs; he'd sung it for years in the shower now and it was only after his stint in Antarctica that it actually came out sounding good.

Oh my love, oh my love

Take this waltz, take this waltz

It's yours now

It's all that there is

"Did you like the song?" he asked when he finished.

Chaya came out of the alcove. "You knew I was here?"

"And I know what you are."

She looked startled.

"Don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

"How did you find out?"

"From one immortal to another, it kind of stands out."

"I see. You do not mind my presence?"

"It gives me the opportunity to ask about my son."

A smile graced her face. "Senya is doing well. He'd like to know more about you, even though Atlantis is hidden rather well."

"Senya?" He shook his head. "Should have known." The name was Old Jewish for 'Heared by God'. "Can I ask you something?"

Chaya cocked her head. "Depends on your question."

"Will all of my children Ascend?"

"Eventually. Senya was an exception to Ascend at such an earlier age, but your essence is very pure."

"And the mother already was energy," he added. "Thank you."

McKay came walking into the daily private meeting Elizabeth and he were having. "Potter, you're almost as brilliant as me!"

"Dr McKay, this is a private meeting, you can't just barge into my office," Elizabeth reprimanded.

Harry snorted slightly. 'Almost as brilliant as me,' he thought, 'that man is going to get into trouble if the Africans ever come this way.'

The scientist was adamant, saying: "It's important."

Their superior sighed. "Since you've already interrupted us, just go ahead and tell us what's got you all excited."

"You know how we've been getting all those reports about Wraith hive-ships heading for our planet?"

They nodded.

"It made me think about sending a message to Earth to warn them about the danger posed by the Wraith and their fixation on Earth, so I was looking at all of our power levels. We only used Potter's solar ward six-seven months and the energy in the ZPMs was negligible really, not enough to raise the shields or establish a connection to the Milky Way lasting all that long.

"Then it hit me. We don't need to actually send a person through the Stargate or even a laptop, all we have to send is a data-stream. I've calculated that we can create a wormhole for about half a second. Using a special compression method I designed, we can send up to 8 gigabyte worth of data in that time."

"Let's do it," ordered Elizabeth.

"The mission reports and the likes won't take that much space," mused Harry. "Can't we, I don't know, allow everybody to record a video message to their family and to Phoenix?"

"That's a wonderful idea, Harry," smiled Elizabeth.

Lieutenant Ford was chosen to operate the camera, preluding a lot of reminiscence and retelling of the past months, including the rise of Atlantis and its consequent submersion, the Wraith, the Genii, the Athosians, ...

"I've been going through all of the documents you want to transfer," Elizabeth walked into his office. "It's quite extensive. I didn't know you kept so detailed accounts of all of everybody. And your journal, the essays?"

"If you supervise the internal and external security of a place as monumental as Atlantis, it's essential to know who, what, why and where. And it serves as a solid base to evaluate people with all the arguments already present." He paused. "The journal, I wasn't sure whether to include it. The thing is though, you might have a lot of connections in the UN and with the political leaders of all the nations involved, I've been to every base, know every Chieftain, Vice-Chieftain and Guardian and was an active participant of both the Zeus Treaty and the Jupiter Manifest. Phoenix Operations will want to know my opinion of the expedition.

"The On prehistoric mankind essay... I have a mastery in history and there's no denying the fact that some things just don't add up if you try to merge the time lines of the Pegasus and Milky Way galaxies."

"It just was a surprise to see them. With all that's going on, I didn't think you had the time."

He called forth one of the timers on his PWD and showed it to her. "The number on top is the amount of hours I've been awake since we stepped foot in Atlantis. The number below is the amount of hours we've actually been in Atlantis."

She looked at him, startled. "There's only a difference of an hour."

He gave her a tight smile. "You can trust me if I say that I've seen a lot of this city. Why do you think I forbid the scientist to explore some sections every now and then?"

She closed her eyes briefly, processing the information. She decided to ignore nearly all implications associated with this perspective of the situation for the moment. "What I wanted to ask you: you didn't record a video message?"

"What would I send and to whom?"

"Something to anyone, no matter what."

"No matter what?" He sat back in his chair.

"You have something in mind?"

"Perhaps," he hesitated, "I've been working on something. Magic far beyond anything that's been done before and my major strategy in case of a full-blown Wraith attack. It should serve as an example to Earth that we're not entirely defenseless."

"What do you need?"

"Zelenka with his scanning equipment in a Jumper, preferable with a camera filming. Ford filming me on the mainland, preferably an entire afternoon free."

"You've got it."

"Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Today I'm going to prove that sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. I am Grandmaster Harry Potter. What you are about to see is the Illusionist's Ambush ."

He started chanting, sometimes even singing, in the Ancient tongue. The text was written completely by him and could be considered as the first artistic masterpiece of the twenty-first century. The humans watching it through the live feed on Atlantis and the four men observing the even more closely found themselves watching the phenomena open mouthed.

After nearly an hour of chanting, almost all of the Athosian people stood behind Lt. Ford. Directly across of them on, sitting on the sand of the beach, was a young boy that if anybody looked closer, would have recognized as a much younger version of the Grandmaster. As it was their attention was on the maelstrom covering a great part of the oceans: energy and light were shifting in it, sometimes shining bright, sometimes dulling.

Another hour later, the observers started getting a better idea of what exactly was going on. What previously was a maelstrom, now was a very blurry replica of Atlantis. Lt. Ford sometimes shifted his camera to the people behind him, but kept his attention on his superior otherwise like a good soldier lad.

After nearly a year of working with the immortal man, most of the expedition had a great deal of respect and were happy to work for him. With the show of power going on, even Dr Kavanagh started to regret the bad things he'd said about the expedition's vice-leader in his video message.

Two and a half hours after the start, Harry ended chanting, took a deep breathe and continued his explanation. "What you see here is a life-sized copy of Atlantis. Everything about it is the same, it even has corridors and a Stargate. Unlike what you might think, this is no exact copy. It is an illusion that entraps the Wraith especially, feeding of their life energy not unlike the British Dementor feeds on humans' souls. As it receives more and more power, it becomes more interactive. It can fire what seems like drone weapons at Wraith Darts, catching them in its grasp.

"It can be used once After it has gathered sufficient energy and I give the command, it will self-destruct, destroying everything in a five hundred kilometer radius. In order for me not to have to do this twice, I have based myself off of Arabic magical art forms." He took a thirty centimeter long lamp from his inner pocket. "This was my first attempt at the Illusionist's Ambush , I thank you for watching."

He opened the lid of the lamp and stroked it backwards. As if a hurricane formed itself in the middle of the illusion, distorting everything, the 'fake' city-ship was sucked into the lamp. He put the lid back on, causing the lamp to glow blue momentarily. Carefully he tucked it away in his inner pocket. Lt. Ford made sure to zoom in on the lamp during the process.

He turned slightly to look at the boy sitting down. "Are you staying, son?"

Senya nodded with a wide-eyed look. "They don't teach what you do."

"I'm sure they don't," he said. "Come over here so I can get a look at you."

His son rose and walked slowly towards his father. Harry crouched to eye-height. "How old are you now?"

"Older and wiser than you," he answered. Then he grudgingly added. "Five years."

Harry pick him up and took him in his arms. "I'm glad I'm not going to have to change your diapers."

Senya gave him an affronted look.

He turned around, seeing Ford still recording and the Athosian people looking at him, reverence in their eyes. He cleared his throat. "Looks like we've got ourselves a public."

"Better than a republic," whispered his son.

"I suppose that's true," smiled Harry. "Come on, let's go home."

"Home?"

He shrugged. "You'll need a place to stay, might as well crash in where your... not-so-old father's staying.

"They Deascended me."

"Really?"

"I Ascended back and got my memories back."

"You'll be safe with me."

His son rubbed his face in Harry's neck. "I'll stay." He got a pat on the back for saying that.

"Lieutenant, the show's over," he called to the slightly younger man. The Puddle Jumper landed behind the Athosians, who curtsied as they passed and murmured amongst each other, probably retelling the times they talked to him personally. Harry Potter - once a legend, always a legend.

"That was," Zelenka began, "the most amazing thing I have ever seen." The man looked like he wanted to shake his hand or even hug him; thankfully he settled for expressing his gratitude vocally. "Thank you for honoring me by allowing me to witness this."

"My pleasure. You recorded the energy levels and so on? Make sure to include those figures in the video file. Let's get back to the city."

"Rodney," Carson Becket spoke, "make sure to send that last part Ford recorded as well."

"With the rest of the video?" McKay asked.

"Nay, separately. Addressee: Guardian Su Li of Phoenix Britain."

"Who's she?"

"Harry's replacement in Blackpool, I know her fairly well."

"Really?"

"I was head of the medical staff of the Blackpool branch before Atlantis; Harry and I go way back. What's it been? Six or seven years now?"

"I didn't know that," there was a curious tone to his voice.

"All you had to do was read my file to know that."

"How is your son settling in?"

"Quite all right. He's with Zelenka building a toy subspace communicator."

Elizabeth blinked. "A toy subspace communicator?"

"Don't ask me." He sat down. "You wanted to see me?"

"Our latest scans show that there are five hive-ships coming our way. They'll be here in two days."

"You want me to put the illusion up," he concluded. "I'll do it tomorrow."

"Do we have to evacuate the Athosian settlement?"

"I'm not sure. It's almost as well protected as Atlantis, but Wraith technology is unfamiliar to me. I don't know how it works, let alone what it can do."

"I'll offer it to them, whether they accept it or not is up to them."

He fiddled a bit on his PWD, continuing his game of Solitaire as he let his thoughts wonder. "Do you think they're going to send us a ship? If I remember correctly, we should have about eight Destroyers, several squadrons of Daggers and twenty battleships by now. Surely one of them could be missed?" Jaffa had Death Gliders, Wraith flew Darts, Tau'ri commandeered Daggers.

Elizabeth shrugged. "The Goa'uld are still a problem, a minor one, granted, but they still pose a danger. We can fight the Replicators easily enough. Unless something different has come up, the Wraith are the only direct threat against Earth."

Harry frowned. "Unless the Ori started their invasion before the weapon was ready."

"We'll see what their response might be. They've left us alone up until now, who knows what the political landscape looks like."

"For all we know they've forgotten all about us," commented he light-heartedly.

"Let's hope that's not the case."

He was once again wandering the corridors at night, this time with Senya at his side. It was weird how his son still was a five year old in many aspects; his Ascension gave him a certain amount of innate wisdom and insight into the workings of the universe on a constant base, but it didn't make him as mystical as the Harsesis-child the Americans encountered several years ago.

"Do you know anything about your mother?" he informed as they passed the gate room.

His son stepped a little closer to him. "Not much. She was one of the first to try Ascension. It failed. She became the opposite... She gave up her life to have me."

"Then we have something in common. My mother, your grandmother, sacrificed herself to save me when I was fifteen months old."

"Really?"

"In the magical community, there lived a man who was so afraid of dying, he split his soul into seven pieces." Senya uttered a horrified squeak. "He stored those pieces in several objects. He thought he was immortal and decided that if he was going to live forever, he would shape the world into what he wanted it to be."

"Like the Ori?"

"Something like that," he answered. "Unfortunately his vision of what the world should be, involved killing a lot of people and taking over people's minds. Several people banded together to stop him. Your grandparents were members of that organization. When I was born they went into hiding. They were betrayed by a friend of theirs and that man found us. He murdered your grandfather and eventually ended your grandmother's life." He paused as they entered the mess hall and sat down at a table. "He wanted to use my death to split the last part of his soul. When he tried to kill me, his spell rebounded, stripping him off his body and leaving a soul fragment inside of me."

"He returned, didn't he?"

"Thirteen years later. I found out about his split soul two years later. When his followers took over the magical government, I went on a treasure hunt, finding a lot of lost artifacts and several sites left behind by the Goa'uld and an Ancient named Morose. When I considered myself ready, I destroyed every piece of the man's soul, obliterating him from existence."

Senya struggled a bit trying to comprehend all of that. Eventually he simply said: "Good."

"How do you like it here?"

"Doctor McKay is mean," was the answer, "but I like the rest."

"Rodney McKay is a clever man, but he doesn't know how to interact with other people."

His son nodded in agreement.

"Don't worry though, he's learning."

"If you say so." Senya stood up from his chair and came to stand in front of Harry, who understood the wordless request. He picked the boy up and sat him in his lap, embracing him. "Do you think they will be all right?"

"Who?"

"The humans."

"Only time will tell." He stroked his son's hair. Wild, like his. " Only time will tell."


	4. Who By Fire

**The Astria Porta Project – Part Four : Who By Fire**

******Disclaimer** I don't own the Harry Potter franchise, nor the Stargate franchise. Other, rich, people do. I also apologize if several people in this story aren't portrayed with sufficient respect; I try, but I only have my imagination to base off.

* * *

Grandmaster Harry James Potter, destroyer of souls and protector of Atlantis and Athos, looked out of the bridge of the Vulture-class battleship Reaper , the most recent ship design to make it into reality. Manned by an international crew compromised for the most part of Russians and Chinese men and women, the Reaper was the first battleship to be outfit with the Asgard/Terran blend of technology followed by the alien race's demise. It resembled the Destroyers from afar - several thousands of kilometers - but had a more refined look than previous ships of the Terran Space Force.

One of the major differences perhaps was the switch from a Portdrive to an Asgard hyperdrive and the usage of a Neutronium Ion Generator as its power source. It made for a definite evolution in the way Terran spacecraft was used and employed, though the power requirements made mass-producing them quite impossible. There were only two Vultures in existence: the Reaper who was assigned to Atlantis and the Grim whose major duty consisted of scouting out the Milky Way and battle Terra's enemies alongside the other Destroyers and B-305s.

That wasn't to say the ship he was on at the moment was the only one available to the expedition, there was a B-305, Daedelus, assigned that ferried personnel and supplies between their homeworld and the Pegasus galaxy.

"Vice-Chieftain Nakhimov, when is our estimated time of arrival?" he asked the ship's commander.

"Fifteen minutes. You are certain you want to go through with this?" confirmed the Russian without any accent to indicate his origin.

"I realize there's certain risk associated to helping Wraith, even if they're semi-transformed Wraith for the next couple of days, but my sense of honor and beliefs demand I help them."

"I understand, Grandmaster. I am helping you despite protest of Atlantis, am I not?"

"I appreciate your effort."

Sergei Nakhimov inclined his head. "The retrovirus is not the solution to our problems, your arguments are valid."

"I wish Weir would have acknowledged them in time," he grunted. "I know this mess was a last resort kind of thing on Caldwell and Sheppard's part, but it's not something that should have happened."

"It is most unfortunate their communication systems were down during the battle."

"I only hope Michael's hatred hasn't festered enough and he's still willing to listen to me."

"Could you care to tell me what makes you think he'll be the most susceptible to you?"

"When he was under the influence of the retrovirus for the first time, Weir ordered me to accept him in the ranks of the security division. As he didn't pose an immediate threat to Atlantis and was quite docile in those days, there was no way for me to ignore the order." He paused. "I've been opposed to the retrovirus since the beginning, people will easily recall the tension going on during the last months. From a magical point of view, I believe it's impossible to reverse a corporal transformation as extensive as the Iratus bug changed the humans of Pegasus thousands of years ago.

"It's about the same reason why werewolves will never be cured, why vampires can't become human, why I'll never be a wizard again. You can morph into something, but to revert to an earlier point in your evolution? It doesn't work that way, there's no 'undo' function in life.

"I was the only one to keep a close eye on Michael by being friendly," he shook his head, "it's amazing how humans act and think they're being subtle. That man is a survivor, just like I'm a survivor. We deal with the cards granted to us and if it isn't to our liking, we cheat. Ronon Dex, aside his Satedan honor, has about the same disposition. And I know that if I were Michael right now, I would plan my vengeance. And it would be big, striking both Wraith and humans. I want to prevent at least that."

"I hope you will succeed."

He was transported to the surface of the planet without a Stargate by means of the Asgard beaming technology, the small settlement in the middle of the forests occupied almost solely by the converted Wraith.

He walked around, observing his surroundings extensively. It already was happening from the looks of it, beneath the surface there was a torrent of confusion and determination, a purpose to seek the answers no matter what.

Having taken a decision, he used his comm link to get in touch with the security detail and Carson, the only expedition members aside himself that were present on the planet.

"This is Grandmaster Potter, I'm at the center of the settlement, meet me there. That's an order." Five minutes later everybody was gathered in front of him. "You will all be transported aboard the Reaper as soon as I give the word to them."

"What about the-?" questioned Carson.

Harry looked at Scotsman. "You know my opinion about the retrovirus, my concerns are being proven correct as we speak. This experiment of yours is out of your hands, you've played god long enough. You've started to roll a ball, I want to prevent it turning into an avalanche."

"What about your safety, sir?" asked Knight Nicholas Doyle.

"I'll survive, I always do. No matter what, so no worries on your part alright?" He shook his head, tapping his PWD and engaging communications with the Vulture above. "Vice-Chieftain Nakhimov, you can transport the men. I'll stay in touch."

"Affirmative, Grandmaster."

White beams surrounded him momentarily, leaving only air in its wake. From the various tents, humans with strange white hair emerged, glancing at him in curiosity. One fellow even had the misfortune of resembling Lucius Malfoy in human form.

"Who are you?"

"Where did the others go to?"

"What are you planning to do with us?"

"Why are you here?"

And at last, the voice he was the most familiar with spoke: "I know you."

"Undoubtedly you do," answered he. "Is it safe for me to assume some of you didn't take the medicine they want you to take?"

This caused a handful of them to take on a wary stance.

"Good, because what they told you about that stuff is a lie."

Michael regarded him. "I feel like I know your name, but I cannot recall it."

"The humans of Terra call me Grandmaster Harry Potter, though Harry will do for now. They named you," he pointed at the brief inhabitant of Atlantis, "Michael, though I know for a fact that is not your true name."

"Why is the medicine not good for us? I thought we had to take it to keep from getting ill," someone argued.

"That's what they told you it was?" He shook his head in dismal. "The truth is that all of you were members of a race called the Wraith. Wraith feed off of the life force of humans though they once were human themselves. You were aboard one of your species' hive-ships on your way to my native galaxy, several of the humans of my home world stopped you and spread a virus into your ship as a last resort kind of thing."

They frowned or tilted their heads in thought after this explanation.

"I'm not fond of their decision, which is why I'm here explaining you the truth. This is the second time they did this to you, Michael."

Michael's eyes narrowed, his expression turning into a slight snarl as several keywords punctured the amnesia within him. "They betrayed me."

"They did."

"Why?"

"Because they're scared of you and their own actions. It's not a good reason, but it's a reason."

"Why are you here and not with them?"

"Why was I the only one that was in close contact with you during your time in Atlantis?" He shook his head. "I'm not human myself, Michael, I know what it's like to be an outsider."

"You are not human?" There was a curious undertone in his voice.

"I'm a hybrid between an immortal bird of fire and a human. Granted it wasn't forced upon me like it was with you, but I assure you, dying for dozens of times isn't exactly fun either."

"So the medicine doesn't work?" a simpleton inquired.

"Weaklings," muttered Michael.

Harry grunted his assent, surprising himself by doing so. "Anyway, if you want to and agree not to harm the humans aboard, I have a spaceship in orbit of this planet that is willing to take you to a planet with a Stargate. I'm not saying you should ignore the actions of the other humans, but I don't want you making a mistake by returning to the Wraith."

"They didn't accept me."

"And they surely won't in the future. You know them better than I do."

Lucius Malfoy's lookalike spoke up. "We already got in touch with others of our kind. They're coming for us."

Harry sighed. "It's your choice. Take the easy way with me or go for the one filled with torture and what not."

The other's hesitation was interrupted by a beeping sound coming from the immortal's wrist.

He glanced at his PWD, wondering what the sound was about. He cursed.

"What is wrong?" Michael asked, stepping closer to see for himself what the problem was. On the screen a simple text message was shown. Atlantis under siege, leaving immediately. Will return when threat gone - Reaper. "Who is Reaper?"

"The ship that was going to transport us."

"They abandoned you as well?"

"It seems that way."

"Humans," sneered the other.

He shrugged. "You get used to the disappointment after a while."

"Do you not seek vengeance?"

"I don't bother with thoughts of vengeance anymore. It's kind of pointless when you know that I can't lose." At the other's questioning look, he elaborated. "I will be there when the last human dies, when the Wraith cease to exist, when the universe collapses upon itself. And I don't know if that'll stop me from living. I'm immortal, the ultimate survivor. If someone harms me or casts me aside, I know that I will be there when they have their last breathe. I find sufficient satisfaction in that act."

"I wish I could say the same."

"As a Wraith, even a partial one, you need to feed to survive. Nothing says there doesn't exist a way to negate that need. If you're not dependent off of feeding to survive, you could age indefinitely and eventually witness humanity's decline, followed soon after by the end of the Wraith. Should their decline be natural of course."

"Do you not long for power, for the lower species to respect you and follow your command?"

"Not immediately. It's something I'm learning from my son, to not interfere in the affairs of mortals. It doesn't always work, otherwise I wouldn't be here. I generally stick to the side these days, not like during the first year I was in Atlantis when my power was new and something I wanted to explore. But like in your case when I think the mortals are making a big mistake, I take a stand. I don't need to have followers to feel powerful, the mere fact that I'm alive is a testament to my strength, prove of my power."

"Curious..." Michael tilted his head. "The hive-ship has arrived, it seems like we will have to find our own way out of the others' clutches."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry my offer couldn't be pursued."

"At least you have the dignity to help me, unlike the others of Atlantis."

The hive-ship's Darts were already on their way, emitting their people-catching beams. There might have been a chance to evade them and it would have come in handy to make Portkeys at that moment, but what were they to do, stuck on a lifeless planet with uncertainty clouding the Reaper 's return? Not to mention that Harry never had the opportunity to see what Wraith life consisted of. Did it correlate to a vampire's existence? And he made a promise to help Michael, he wasn't going to neglect that promise.

Even if Senya was on Atlantis waiting for him...

He awoke in a dark cell, alone. It was chilly, but still dozens of Celsius degrees away from Antarctica's climate.

"You are awake?" sounded a voice to his right. Harry recognized it as the one from 'Lucius'.

"I am. Where is Michael?"

"You can hear his screams in the distance. They are torturing him."

"Is he the first?"

"Yes."

"Then either of us will be next."

"You will be the first."

"Probably."

"They will reject us like they rejected Michael."

"That's a correct assumption."

"There are enough of us to take over control of this hive."

"If you manage to get out."

"If we manage to get out," 'Lucius' acknowledged. "Can you do something?"

"I can destroy the ship, but I don't think that's what either of us want. I have several options available to me, but first I want to make sure Michael is okay. My guess is that I'll be taken to the hive queen."

"Queens are powerful Wraith."

"I've fought tougher beings than Wraith."

"You have?"

"I destroyed an Ascended being, vanquished a person who came close to immortality. The hive-ship and cruisers assaulting Atlantis for the first time were dealt with by me. I think that a Wraith queen won't be so difficult to deal with."

"Would you return to Atlantis if you had the choice?"

"I think so."

"Why?"

"My son is there. A queen looks after her subjects, I look after my son in the same way."

"And if your son was with you?"

"He's half-Lantean and Ascended, you would have to fight every instinct in you to stop from harming him."

"And what if the human part within us dimmed those instincts?"

"I don't know."

"You don't seem to find the idea of taking the life force of humans so appalling."

"You're a different race, you survive by taking the life of humans. I can't begrudge you for that." He paused. "On Terra, my homeworld, there is a race similar to yours. They're called vampires. They feed on human blood. They've been around for thousands of years, yet most humans believe they don't exist. They don't drain their victims off blood, live in the shadows of humanity and do everything they have to keep their population under control. They could be more like the Wraith if they wanted to, but they find it easier to fend of resistance and opposition by not drawing attention to themselves."

"Do the humans of Atlantis know this?"

"They don't. The wizarding world, my old community, is the only one to know about them with absolute certainty. Of the descendants of that community, I'm the only one to know more than myths and facts provided by the vampires. Stumbled across on of their hiding places when I was younger, had some interesting conversations with the Tepez clan."

"It is something to think about... They are bringing Michael back."

"Where is his cell?"

"He's with you."

"Oh. Not very smart."

"Depends on the perspective."

"Indeed it does."

The guards dumped the twice-humanized Wraith with him several minutes later. Crouching in front of the man, Harry examined his outward appearance. It would be a waste of time and effort to check for vital signs seeing as today was his first real encounter with the species. In the past, all of his interaction with them was from a distance, Lantea's magic protecting him.

"You are weak," noted he.

"What did you expect?" Michael bitterly replied, his body shaking slightly at the effort it took.

He hesitated slightly, but decided to follow his instinct. It hadn't failed him so far. "You need to feed." He unbuttoned the upper part of his robe, exposing his chest to the other man.

With a slightly grateful look, Michael put his hand on his skin. His touch was cold, like what he remembered of the touch of vampires. A gasp escaped him as he felt his life trickling away from him. It didn't happen immediately, but he still felt himself age... A most curious feeling for someone who hadn't aged in several years. It wasn't pleasant per say, but it wasn't as horrible as waking up beneath the pole cap or crawling through a landscape of ice and snow.

Watching your skin grow dry and shrink around your bones, the hair on your arms become white, your bones stick out, there far more pleasant activities to witness. Then came that one moment of perfect bliss, the afterlife. One moment without worries, where your past didn't matter. An unconditional feeling of happiness surrounding you, warming your soul. It was fleeting, like a whisper in the wind, but he lived to feel that brush of something better. Alive, it sometimes caused him despair, there were days that he woke up with nothing but the desire of death on his mind.

It wasn't possible. He'd died about thirty-forty times in Antarctica, Atlantis saw him die for sixty times. To test the limits, to observe the various ways he came back to live, to train his control over his various organs. He knew that he could shut off his lungs, his heart, his brains if he wanted to. Never for a long time, a couple of minutes was the longest time he ever stayed dead.

Senya knew about the attempts of course, it wasn't like he could hide the sounds coming from his throat or the mess he left behind each time. Thankfully his Ascended state and natural curiosity negated most of the emotional trouble children would have with the idea.

When he opened his eyes, the same body before Michael started feeding met his sight. Such was the way his immortality worked: always returning to the same state it had the first time he died - without the superficial wounds, but with the malfunctioning spine causing him to become dependent on artificial legs.

"Fascinating," breathed Michael, regarding him much like a mad scientist regarded his subject.

"Bloody awful, that's what it is."

He closed his robe, just in time it seemed as the guards were back, this time to fetch him. They led him through a myriad of corridors and halls, passing different kinds of Wraith. It was evident from the way they made weird throaty sounds and showed off their teeth that the Wraith didn't have any dental care. Then again it wasn't as if they needed mouths, those were simply reminders of their human and Ancient lives before the Iratus bug. The guards were the most evolved from that aspect with those bee hives stuck on their face. Or was that something like a logo depicting their rank?

Eventually they came in a grand looking room with a red-haired queen sitting on a throne in the center and several of her minions standing in the shadows.

"Grandmaster Potter," the queen said, a hissing sound escaping her mouth after each word. "I have heard many things about you."

In an unimpressed gesture, his left eyebrow rose. You had to hand it to his former professor, Snape knew how to manipulate his brows. He glanced at his surroundings, from what he heard Colonel Sumner at least was served a healthy meal before they started sucking the life out of him. It seemed their etiquette wasn't uphold so easily anymore. Oh well, two could play this game. The queen's hiss might've been a mockery to snakes, he still retained his Parseltongue abilities.

" And I've never heard of you. "

The queen's eyes widened, her head doing a very odd movement, immediately followed by her mouth opening and a supposedly threatening hiss escaping it. He could see why somebody like McKay would be frightened, but seriously? Vampires were far more intimidating, their women more attractive. And no hiss could equal that of a basilisk.

"You speak like a snake." Oddly enough her tone was seductive for this comment.

"You don't."

She regarded him carefully. "You would make for a perfect pet."

He swallowed. "Pet?"

"You're perfect to warm my bed... The snake language you speak, I find it quite exciting. Yes, you will be mine."

What was it with female aliens that they always found him attractive? And why were it always the ugly ones? (Freya/Anise not included, she was special.) "What if I refused?"

She rose from her seat and approached him, her hand caressing his cheeks. He shuddered, repulsed by the sensation. "You will learn."

She left his side, motioning to the guards to take him back to the cell.

"Are there any guards nearby?" Harry asked Michael a while later.

"We are alone."

"Excellent." He unzipped the flaps on his legs, you had to hand it to the tailors that made his uniform, they knew how to subtly take into account the oddities of his legs. His 'skin' exposed he searched for the 'birthmark' on his right leg that operated like the manual controls of the internal magical facilities of his legs. Its shape was that of the continents of Terra, opening the compartments required a certain combination. He tapped the middle of Siberia, the jungle of Brazil, Switzerland, the general whereabouts of mount Kilimanjaro, the Gibson desert of Australia and finally the South Pole. Aside the last location, they were all places where a Phoenix base was founded. As such only someone familiar with the organization and Terra itself would ever be able to have a clue what the combination was.

It certainly beat Dumbledore's little map of the London underground as a 'birthmark'.

The compartments jumped open, eliciting a surprised yelp from his companion.

From his right leg he took two Disintegrators - smaller and better as human technology was wont do, handing one over to Michael. He closed the lid and plunged his left arm in the bottomless hole of his other leg, his fingers clutching various objects. Explosives weren't going to help them right now, they needed a quick and easy way to conquer the Wraith governing this ship.

He brushed past his book collection, ignored the crossbow and P90, discarded the mines, but paused when he came across a flask. Clutching it, he retreated his arm.

"What is it?"

Harry looked at the flask/bottle. "An endless supply of holy water, blessed by pope John Paul himself." He remembered the gift, provided by one of the first supply trips of the Daedalus. He also recalled he was unsure on what to do with holy water at the time and simply chucked it with the rest of his spare supplies.

There was a note stuck on the other side of the flask. God moves in the most mysterious ways. In case you are in need of a miracle, let the Lord guide you.

Holy water didn't harm vampires on Terra, but as he'd already found out: magic worked everywhere. And you never knew... So much of Terran history was influenced by alien races and events taken place eons before the human race every grew a backbone. Where did holy water come from? What made it holy? He wasn't raised religiously, so it wasn't as if he knew the answer to those questions. Who knew, maybe holy water protected against the Wraith in some way.

"I think I've got our way out of captivity, but I need to test something first. Can you give me your hand for a moment?"

The other cautiously moved his hand forward.

Harry uncorked the bottle, cupping a bit of its content in his palm. It smelled funny, that was a start. He set the flask on the 'ground'. His cupped hand moved over Michael's. He turned his palm to the opposite direction suddenly, allowing the drops to fall on Michael's skin.

For a moment nothing happened, then the skin reddened like burn wounds, darkening until all that was left was a shriveled black hand. It was eerily familiar to Harry as he'd already seen the same result coming from the curse Voldemort put on the Peverell ring, the one that disabled his former headmaster's hand.

"It seems, my friend, that this holy water isn't as useless as I thought it was." He shook his head. "That old codger, the pope must've known it would do this."

"It heals very slowly," Michael commented. "Already I feel the energy you gave me withering."

"Which means that if a lot more than several drops are used on the other Wraith, they won't survive."

"There is only this small flask."

Harry hummed in agreement. "Which is why I'm going to attach it to something else I've got it with me." With little difficulty he was able to procure the water bazooka stored in the compartment. By carefully maneuvering and adjusting the bazooka with a screwdriver, he was able to replace to make it so that the magical bubble with water would from now on be a magical bubble of holy water, with at least three liter being launched each time the trigger was pulled.

Putting the unnecessary objects back to where they came from with only a knife and the bazooka remaining, he closed the lid and zipped the flaps of his pants back.

"I'm ready."

Michael took the knife in his hand, cutting lose the tendrils of the organic fiber separating them from freedom. It didn't take long until Harry was in position to fire at possible incomers, giving the other the time to free the former converted Wraith.

Lucius came to stand right behind him, so he gave the other humanoid the second Disintegrator.

"Fire once to stun, twice to kill, thrice to disintegrate."

Lucius nodded in confirmation.

"Everybody stay behind me when I fire, I can't guarantee your survival if the holy water finds its way on your person." He checked whether all of his Wraith brothers in arms were gathered. "Let's go."

They moved through the corridors, securing their perimeter at each corner. When they were about to ascend a stairway, Lucius tapped on his shoulder. "Your display devices."

He placed them in a pocket. "Thanks."

"They'll be waiting for us."

He inclined his head. "It's a strategic position."

Step by step they ascended, constantly on the lookout, straining their senses. When they gave him the signal, he aimed the bazooka and pulled the trigger. A cannonball of holy water rushed forwards, seeking its target in a way a bludger would be jealous of. The shrieks of several dying Wraith sounded like music to his ears. He waited five seconds and launched another load, this time hitting a group of five that had been walking towards their position with their guns loaded.

They rose a bit higher, Harry firing a volley of Wraith-killing liquid every five seconds. Sometimes he really adored magic.

Soon enough they had control over the corridors and hall surrounding the stairways, his unarmed companions picking up the weapons of their dead opponents. From there the process of eliminating the enemy and steadily gaining control only got better, the hand weapons distracting those who might've wanted to take out the bazooka.

Two hours later the job was done, the queen was dead as were her subjects.

"Now that you've got a hive-ship at your disposal, what are you going to do?"

"Eliminate the competition, strengthen our position in the galaxy. You've given us much to think about."

He inclined his head. "And your vengeance?"

"The humans," he sneered, "of Atlantis will reap what they sow." He paused. "If it is not by my hand, it will be through other means, of that I'm certain. I will not seek them out, but if they cross my path I will show the same mercy they showed me: none."

"Fair enough."

"What are your intentions?"

"Return to Atlantis, talk to my son, withdraw from the expedition. I'll see where the stars take me. Maybe I'll set up camp on a different planet, I'm not sure."

"You are welcome on this ship," invited Michael.

He shook his head. "I'm glad I helped you out, but this is not my place and you know it. I wouldn't mind staying in touch, but it's high time I took a more neutral stance towards the situation in this galaxy. This whole ordeal has opened my eyes, giving me a perception broader than most Terrans have."

"I canaccept that. You can have one of our Darts to leave once we've left hyperspace."

"I'm grateful for that."

"You helped us, we help you."

"Indeed."

"Unscheduled incoming wormhole," warned Vice-Knight Eduardo Gonzalez from his position behind Atlantis' advanced DHD. "Receiving Grandmaster Potter's IDC."

Guardian Bates frowned. "I thought he wasn't anywhere near a Stargate?"

"Something must have happened," voiced out Lord Sheppard from behind them.

Bates nodded.

"Receiving audio signal. Turning on the speakers."

"Atlantis, this is Grandmaster Potter, do you copy?"

"Potter, this is Sheppard. You're on the speakers."

"All right. Is the gate room clear?"

Bates turned to the guards stationed below and signaled for them to rush Kavanagh out of the way. That scientist always managed to find his way in places he shouldn't be, always complaining about this and that. The guards gladly obeyed their superior's order.

"This is Bates, the room is clear."

"Excellent. Don't be surprised by what you're going to see."

"What exactly might that be?"

There was no reply necessary however as they saw a Wraith Dart materialize in the gate room, initializing alarms instigated by the Ancients.

"Can somebody open up the roof?"

An hour later a debriefing/meeting took place consisting of the most important persons of Atlantis, with the commanders of the Reaper and Daedalus present as well. The threat to the city apparently was a fluke, some mindless scientist entering the wrong code sequence in the systems' long range communication facilities while trying to configure a direct connection with Earth, his absence having taken the better part of a week, most of which was spent flying the hive-ship to the habituated part of Pegasus.

Senya's higher state of existence showed themselves clearly when after sharing glances, his son simply said: "I know a place." It was odd to know that while the boy literally had the universe at his finger tips, he chose to be with his father.

"A hive-ship arrived not too long after the Reaper left. It was too short notice for me to do anything, so nearly all of us were captured. When I woke up they were torturing Michael, with the other Wraith converted to humans lined up to be tortured next. I spoke with one of them, he reminded me of a man I knew on Earth, Lucius, so that's what I'll use to refer to him."

Nakhimov looked uncomfortable hearing that, while Rodney McKay stared at him.

"You were on a hive-ship in a cell and you decided to simply talk to a Wraith?"

Harry shrugged. "I was curious and I wanted to know what was going on."

"All right... Just like that?" the scientist uttered, shaking his head.

"Anyway, they brought Michael back. Let me tell you, he isn't pleased with humanity and this expedition in particular. As it was, I let him take my life force to bring him back to full strength. Odd experience, for a moment I was nothing but a skeleton." The others looked sickened. He waved their petty concerns away. "I've been through worse things. After a while the guards came to fetch me, I was brought in front of the queen. She hissed at me, I replied in Parseltongue - snake language for your information. Seemed like a bad thing to say, because she decided to keep me as her pet." Some squirmed in their seats, wondering how they would fair as a hive queen's pet. "To warm her bed." This newfound frankness was quite amusing now that he'd finally and completely made the distinction between them and him.

He continued. "They dragged me back, I decided not to stick around any longer, so I searched through my supplies until I stumbled upon a flask I hadn't given much thought of before." He smirked. "A gift from pope John Paul, an endless flask of holy water."

This seemed to surprise them.

"And you used this flask of... endless holy water... to get free?" Sheppard questioned sceptically.

Harry nodded. "It's the secret to fight the Wraith. Several drops shriveled and blackened Michael's hand and it took a lot of time until it was healed. I attached it to my water bazooka and with the help of all of the reverted Wraith killed every hostile Wraith on that hive-ship. Their body couldn't handle more than a glass worth of the stuff."

"You killed an entire hive-ship?" Carson murmured, impressed.

"That I did. Michael and the other Wraith you converted are in control of it right now."

"You did nothing to stop them?" Elizabeth confusedly asked. "They're the enemy."

Harry shook his head. "Michael isn't my enemy. He's grateful I went through all the trouble to help him. You can however consider him as your enemy. I gave him some other ideas to play around with, but I knew enough by his calculated look. Until the expedition, there wasn't anything done about changing their Wraith form now or playing around with the human background. I don't know what exactly he's going to do, but rest assured it'll be by Atlantis' doing."

Carson's eyes had widened, his face blanched.

"You neglected to listen to what I had to say, ignored the arguments I gave you. And strangely enough, I find myself reaching the end of my patience here. My mortal, human life ended more than two years ago. I thought being a part of this expedition would make me feel useful again, but it's not and I accept that. My perspective and outlook is changing.

"Effective immediately, I resign from my position as Grandmaster of this mission and Phoenix Operations in general. Atlantis doesn't need me anymore, that's become obvious by the way my concerns and objections were dealt with. I will be leaving with my son to a different part of this galaxy. I won't say I'll refuse to help you in the future, but it's about time I settled down. I have eternity to look forward to, I'll need a place to call home sooner rather than later."

"Can't you wait with that for a couple of years?" argued Elizabeth, "As you said, you've got eternity to look forward to."

"And that's the crux of the matter," replied Harry softly, "eternity's happening right now, not later."

"You'll leave behind a way to contact you?"

"I will."

"I guess there's not much we can do about it except accept," sighed the Chieftain.

"My mind's made up and Senya is in agreement," acknowledged he.

"Are you in need of transportation?" proposed Nakhimov.

He tilted his head. As if on cue, Senya appeared next to him. "While it is not a requirement, we appreciate and accept your gesture," the boy spoke. "I will give the coordinates as soon as possible."

"What's the name of the planet?" informed the father, curious.

"Shambhala."

"The hidden kingdom of the Himalayas?"

Senya smiled at him. "The spiritual center of this galaxy." 'The temples need some cleaning, and there are things we could occupy our time with. It used to be the most important place where people Ascended. At least until the Wraith destroyed it..."

He raised an eyebrow. Legilimensy? That one hadn't been done before.

Elizabeth interrupted them. "Would you mind if we sent a team with you?"

Harry frowned, looking at his son first and then at the older woman. "I don't mind." He turned back to the youngest and wisest present. 'What kind of projects are there to do?'

'A city-ship without any buildings and the necessary materials in places I can find them,' replied the other.

'Like the ZPM from the brotherhood?"

Senya's smile brightened just a tiny bit.

'All right, I'm game.'

'It'll take several decades.'

'Compared to eternity, several decades won't make a difference.'

'You're starting to understand, Dad.'

He ruffled the boy's hair. 'Not everybody has a connection to the universe to guide and help them.'

'It's a shame you can't Ascend.'

'It's nothing for me.'

'If you say so.'

"You weren't lying when you said this place needed some work," murmured Harry to the boy at his side. They were near the Astria Porta of Shambhala, looking at the ruins of Pegasus' spiritual center. Temples and monastery-like buildings stood all over the place, some of the towers reaching hundreds of meters in the air. The area was circular, the buildings arranged in the same snow-flake structure of Atlantis, though they only knew that from the images captured from space.

And while it all looked impressive, you easily saw everything had stood there, abandoned, since the Wraith attacked the planet. Different kind of plants sprouted from the ground, going so far as to penetrate the walls thirty feet up.

"Atlantis is in the middle of an ocean for a reason," was the reply.

"Are we going to restore everything?"

"Eventually."

Harry shrugged. It wasn't as if he didn't know how to construct or pull weeds. And it was a far more pleasant job than worrying about alien entities penetrating the base.

They started walking forwards, glancing everywhere and taking in what would be their new home. Harry shook his head, how many homes did that make already? Godric's Hollow, Privet Drive, Hogwarts, Grimmauld Place, Adder Castle, Atlantis, Shambhala. The seventh home. Well... seven was a magical number, maybe he'd get lucky and could stay here for the remainder of eternity.

"It's times like these I miss Adder Castle."

"Adder Castle?"

"The castle on Terra that was my home. I spent more time there than anywhere else except my old cupboard. I have only been there to pick up my possessions before I came to this galaxy since Antarctica, it didn't feel so much like home anymore with Homeworld Security settled in."

"I'd like to see it someday."

"This city-ship you spoke of, where is it?"

"At the edge of the temples ahead of us. The spire between those roofs over there, that's the center of the plateau." Senya paused. "The stardrive didn't work when they were attacked here."

"You seem to have a firm grasp on your abilities."

"Your lessons in control helped me achieve a mastery in using the full extent of my power."

"How are the others?"

"Agreed on how to deal with the likes of you," the Ascended brat cheekily said.

"I'm included in the rules?"

"Something like that."

"Why are we in the spiritual center, for real this time?."

Senya skipped ahead of him, entering one of the largest temples of the complex. Sighing, Harry followed him, coming to an abrupt stop when he saw what was inside the temples.

"Senya, are that what I think they are?"

"They are."

He regarded the hall, lit by the energetic presence of thousands of Ascended beings.

"Are they aware we're here?"

"Most of them are, some are focusing on different parts of the galaxy."

"How come they're here?"

"When you Ascend to a higher state of existence, you shed your physical body and assume an energetic form. This you know. But the energetic form in itself still has some physical representations. To lessen the solitary strains of our existence, most of us choose to stay near each other. It's why banishment to different planets is such a cruel existence. You stay in touch with the rest, but you'll never physically be near a person."

"Like Chaya."

"Like Chaya."

"You're sounding more mature the older you get, I don't want to know what you will be like when you enter you're a teenager."

"My body doesn't need to go through that," smirked the six year old. "I'm already perfect."

"Now you sound like McKay."

The smirk left Senya's face.

"Is the team from Atlantis going to find out about them?"

"Only you are allowed to see them."

"What do they and you want from me?"

"That you're here. You're the closest the Ascended have to an equal, it's only natural you stay with us. Some are convinced that your understanding of life and death and your command over the physical universe will help in evolving to an even higher plane of existence."

Harry snorted in amusement, they wanted him to teach them? They needed it though, the rules they upheld originated from a very indifferent point of view towards the 'lesser' planes of existence. And while it was good to assume such a position, it wasn't how life worked, wasn't the purpose of having a soul... the opportunity to make your choices, make mistakes and correct them. For him the afterlife was bliss, but he could easily imagine it to be different for every individual. Heaven and hell, the afterlife was a very individual affair. Ascension was not.

"Where do we stay?"

"The central spire of the unfinished city has living quarters."

"Let's go check them out then."

Senya smiled at him.

He shook his head. Their father-son relationship certainly wasn't a usual one, but you couldn't expect less when your Ascended son held the answers and only craved for affection of his 'old' man.

"You want me to carry you?"

"I'd like that."

He crouched and opened his arms, pulling Senya up. Thank god his legs worked automatically, he didn't think he could go through the effort of carrying his son and walking around for a long time. The kid was getting a bit heavy.

"What did you tell Zelenka anyway?"

"I told him if he ever wanted to Ascend, I'd be glad to help him."

"What did he say?"

"That he'd think about."

"I'm sure he will."

"Dad?"

"Yes, son?"

"I want to hear about the Chamber of Secrets."

"Again? I must have told you that story dozens of times."

The six year old shrugged, embracing his father's neck. "I like to hear it."

"All right then... Let's see... It was my second year at Hogwarts. I had a good friend in those days by the name of Ronald Weasley. His family..."

In the hall of the Ascended, two figures that had been watching the interaction in their physical form sighed and returned to their energetic form. It was story time and reluctant to admit it they were, the Ascended collective liked to listen to Harry Potter telling about his life... A life the Ascended hadn't been able to follow due to the presence of magic.

Story time always caught their attention.

Senya frowned. "Dad, there is-"

"Activity near the Astria Porta? I know."

"You put the Cricket Detection Ward up?"

Harry shook his head. "I can't get around the wand requirement for that one." He gestured at the window in front of them. "I saw it."

Senya pouted. "Stupid height."

He rolled his eyes. "Then why don't you assume a taller form."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

His son mumbled incoherently.

"I didn't quite catch that."

"I said: because I don't know what being tall is like."

"The universe doesn't cover that?"

"No, something to do with natural progress."

"Do you know who came through the Porta? We're too high for me to see any details."

"Humans and... something else."

"They seem to be looking for something."

"They're here to see us."

"Then let's go find out what they want."

Twenty minutes later they were face to face with Atlantis' flag team for offworld missions: Sheppard, Teyla, McKay and Ronon, accompanied by a complete stranger.

"Potter!" Sheppard greeted. "Just the man we need!" He winked at Senya. "How's your old man doing?"

"Older and wiser."

"Who's the fifth man?" questioned Harry.

Said man stepped forward. "I am Niam."

'I know a Niam,' Senya sent in a Legilimensy probe.

"I'm Harry Potter."

"My people and I have been led to believe that you are an expert in Ascension?"

"I know quite a bit of the process and what's it like, if that is what you mean?" He noticed Senya staring at the man, frowning.

'He's an Asuran. They're a failed experiment of the Lanteans, the Ascended thought they were exterminated thousands of years ago.'

'What are they?'

'Evolved nanites. Someone showed them how to mess with their base code.'

"There are many on my world who are eager to Ascend, unfortunately we do not know how to go about Ascending. We were wondering whether you want to help us."

He stared at the Replicator-like man briefly, before looking at McKay. If anybody would have been so foolish to do what Senya told him happened, it would be the Canadian scientist. The man mouthed ZPM at him.

"Unfortunately that is not a decision I can make by myself," he told the Replicator. "As you might guess I am not at a liberty to disclose secrets like to whomever I want to."

"The Lanteans were like that," Niam neutrally said. "But you believe you could help us?"

"It's a probability," acknowledged Harry.

"Excellent. A ship is on its way to this planet as we speak."

He gave the man a thin smile, his eyes flashing 'idiots' at the team from Atlantis.

'The shutdown command won't work if I would give it.'

'Do the rules of no interference also include not defending yourself when they try to attack?'

'Hive ships coming in orbit of the planet have been known to disappear...'

'Good, 'cause I have the feeling that's exactly what will be necessary to stop these monstrosities.'

'Indeed.'

"Was it really necessary to destroy their city-ship?" McKay whined as Harry escorted them to the Astria Porta.

"This planet is more than merely our home. You should have let us know you were bringing a failed experiment of the Ancients to this place. Besides, they had to be destroyed. Thanks to your meddling, those Asurans can ignore the shutdown protocols in their systems, you've got nobody but yourself to thank for that mess."

"You going to be okay out here?" murmured Sheppard. "You can always come back with us."

He shook his head. "I left for a reason. I have a few tricks up my sleeve to keep intruders away."

"Fidelius?"

"Probably."

They paused in front of the Astria Porta.

"You're not going to resurface for a couple of years, are you?"

Harry looked at his son and glanced at the temples of the Ancients. "I doubt it."

Sheppard looked uncomfortable for a moment, before taking the decision and hugging him briefly. "Take care."

"I will. Keep safe yourself."

Ronon nodded at him, while Teyla embraced him as well.

"Give Kanaan my regards," he told the Athosian woman.

McKay still looked as if somebody killed his puppy.

"McKay... Don't do anything foolish in the near future for me, will you?"

"I'll have you know, I don't do foolish. For what's it's worth... It was enlightening to know you."

"It was a pleasure to work with you," he wryly said.

Soon after the expedition members and associates left.

As they turned around to head back into the temple complex, Harry said to his son. "I guess your comrades will get those lessons they're interested in after all."

Senya hummed in agreement.

Harry regarded the collective in front of him. It had taken months to convince them to 'revert' to their physical forms, perhaps even longer until they were ready to make that step. Several of the Ascended hadn't been in a physical form for millions of years, the results of which reminded him awfully much of Transfiguration accidents described in his schoolbooks. Women with beards, men with breasts, animal body parts,... Some of them really seemed to have lost their connection to the lesser planes of existence.

He sighed. This would be the first group he'd deal with and probably the most difficut of them all: those that had been Ascended the longest. He'd rather deal with the 'younger' ones, but when it came to evolution on this level... Hopefully this generation learned a bit more about themselves than the rest and were prepared to accept several things they'd discarded long ago.

"I know you are all older than me and have seen far more than I at this moment in my existence, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on several subjects. I'll then offer my opinion. Hopefully with my understanding of the metaphysical and your knowledge, we will be able to come to several conclusions. It's far removed from transcending to a higher plane of existence for the moment, but it's important to know."

The one that appeared as a man with chicken wings - he found the animals apparently very interesting to observe - spoke up. "Why should your opinion matter to us?"

He shrugged. "When I think of Ascension, I easily come up with several questions nobody seems to be able to answer. And in my book, everything that doesn't have a clear answer, that happens without any reason at all, is magic. At the same time as it doesn't seem to make sense, magic nearly always has a purpose, a raison d'être. It's in the process of discovering what the purpose is, that one learns about the mystical ways of the universe."

The man tilted his head to the side, before nodding. "It is easy to forget that you are no mere human."

"Have I ever been?" he pondered out loud, "I doubt it."

"Some individuals are destined for greatness," was the reply.

"Then what, might I ask, are the Ascended destined for?"

They didn't manage to find a decent answer to that question, which didn't surprise Harry in the least. And it became apparent when the next group came and went, followed by yet another group, and another, and another, until every Ascended present had been asked that very question, that nobody quite knew the answer... That for all their might and understanding, the Ascended did not know what their purpose was or why they even had that power. And for all his compassion and intellect, it wasn't a question Harry could answer either.

So they watched the stars twinkle and shine, the planets turn and humanity rise and fall. Occasionally some thought they had the answer, but they were proven wrong. And still they wondered, figuratively colorblind and deaf, what meaning there was to their existence.

Until one day the universe ceased to exist.


End file.
